Logo image
Assessing grammar, vocabulary, syntactic complexity and pragmatics in children with autism before and after STAR and TEACCH
Thesis   Open access

Assessing grammar, vocabulary, syntactic complexity and pragmatics in children with autism before and after STAR and TEACCH

Sean Matthew Romano
Master of Science (M.S.), Drexel University
Nov 2013
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/etd-4493
pdf
Romano_Sean_20131.84 MBDownloadView

Abstract

Autism in children--Alternative treatment Autism in children--Language Psychology
Language abilities can vary in children with autism. Standardized tests are typically used to determine language outcomes post intervention. These tests tend to be too broad to adequately evaluate language. Furthermore, natural language samples should be used when testing outcomes because they are more ecologically valid. This study collected natural language samples from the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule as part of the Autism Instructional Methods Survey. Over eighteen thousand utterances from forty-four children were transcribed pre and post therapy. Grammar, vocabulary, syntactic complexity and pragmatic were assessed between two therapy methods and various fidelity levels. This study is unique in that there are currently no comparative intervention studies using natural language samples. This type of sensitive analysis provides us an understating of how different therapeutic methods contribute to generalizable linguistic skills in vocabulary, syntax, utterance length and pragmatics, and how these outcomes are affected by treatment fidelity.

Metrics

40 File views/ downloads
41 Record Views

Details

Logo image