LSHSS
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools Vol.38 400-413 October 2007. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2007/041)
© American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow CEUs available
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow My Folders
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Stiegler, L. N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Stiegler, L. N.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Facebook   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Clinical Exchange

Discovering Communicative Competencies in a Nonspeaking Child With Autism

Lillian N. Stiegler
Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond

Contact author: Lillian N. Stiegler, Southeastern Louisiana University, Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Box 10879 SLU, Hammond, LA 70402. E-mail: lstiegler{at}selu.edu.

Purpose: This article is intended to demonstrate that adapted conversation analysis (CA) and speech act analysis (SAA) may be applied by speech-language pathologists (SLPs) to (a) identify communicative competencies in nonspeaking children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially during particularly successful interactions, and (b) identify communicative patterns that are exhibited by interventionists and communication partners that may positively or negatively impact interactions with such children.

Method: A case example involving an 8-year-old boy with autism and the author, an SLP, is explicated. A videotaped segment from an intervention session was transcribed and subjected to adapted forms of CA and SAA.

Results: CA and SAA helped reveal several underlying competencies in the boy's communicative output, including an awareness of conversational structure and sequence, diversity of communicative acts, functional use of gaze and smile behavior, and the ability to spontaneously initiate interactions. Observations regarding the SLP's interactive style included the use of multiple instances of "asking" as well as multiple "derailments" of the boy's obvious communicative bids.

Conclusion: CA and SAA may be adapted to gain a clearer picture of what takes place during especially positive communicative interactions with nonspeaking children with ASD.

KEY WORDS: autism, pragmatics, discourse analysis, communication strategies, autism spectrum disorder


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Facebook Facebook   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?




HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
All ASHA Journals AJA AJSLP JSLHR LSHSS
Copyright © 2007 by the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.