Pilot Investigation of Language Development of Children With Autism Receiving Peer Networks Intervention.
- Resource Type
- Article
- Authors
- Schmidt, Carla; Schmidt, Matthew; Kamps, Debra; Thiemann-Bourque, Kathy; Mason, Rose
- Source
- Journal on Developmental Disabilities. 2017, Vol. 23 Issue 1, p3-17. 15p.
- Subject
- *AUTISM spectrum disorders in children
*SOCIAL psychology
*LANGUAGE acquisition
*PERVASIVE child development disorders
*SOCIAL interaction
*CHILD development deviations
- Language
- ISSN
- 1188-9136
Peer mediated interventions are among the most successful in producing positive change in social competence for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study extends the research in this area by reporting the outcomes of a pilot study that sought to investigate the discrete changes in language skills of elementary school-age children with ASD enrolled in a peer mediated intervention. The peer networks intervention consisted of social groups and literacy groups with peers. Detailed language transcriptions of video probes were used to examine the impact of the peer networks intervention on expressive language abilities of eight children with ASD over kindergarten and first grade as compared to eight children with ASD not receiving intervention. Video probes were collected pre-intervention and at one and two years post intervention. Participants were separated into two groups based on baseline language capabilities: moderate and highly verbal. Change in participant's expressive language was measured by total number of completed words, total number of different words, mean turn length, and type-token ratios.1 Findings indicate that the experimental groups made more gains in the observed language variables than the comparison groups for both the moderate and the highly verbal groups. Differences between experimental and comparison groups as well as between moderate and highly verbal groups were observed. Greatest differences were found in participants' total number of words and number of different words. These differences were strongest after two years of intervention. With intervention, participants communicated with their peers in a naturalistic social setting using a larger total number of words and a larger total number of different words than before receiving intervention and compared to participants not receiving intervention. Results from the pilot study further support the call for explicit instruction in social competence for individuals with ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]