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Investigating a Multimodal Intervention for Children with Limited Expressive Vocabularies Associated with Autism
Brady, Nancy C. Storkel, Holly L. Bushnell, Paige Barker, Robert Michael Saunders, Kathryn J. Daniels, Debby Fleming, Kandace
Brady, Nancy C.
Storkel, Holly L.
Bushnell, Paige
Barker, Robert Michael
Saunders, Kathryn J.
Daniels, Debby
Fleming, Kandace
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Abstract
Purpose: To investigate a new intervention package aimed at increasing expressive word learning by
school-age children with autism who have limited expressive vocabularies. This pilot investigation was
intended to show proof of concept.
Method: Ten children between the ages of 6-10 years with educational diagnoses of autism and limited
expressive vocabularies at the outset of the study participated. A multimodal intervention composed of
speech sound practice and AAC was used to teach individualized vocabulary words that were selected
based on initial speech sound repertoires and principles of phonotactic probability and neighborhood
density. A multiple-probe design was used to evaluate learning outcomes.
Results: Five children showed gains in spoken- word learning across successive word sets (High
Responders). Five children did not meet learning criteria (Low Responders). Comparisons of behaviors
measured prior to intervention indicated that High Responders had relatively higher skills in receptive
language, prelinguistic communication, vocal/verbal imitation, adaptive behavior and consonant
productions.
Conclusions: The intervention package holds promise for improving spoken word productions for some
children with autism who have limited expressive vocabularies. Further research is needed to better
describe who may most benefit from this approach as well as investigate generalized benefits to untaught
contexts and targets.
Description
This is the author's accepted manuscript. The original is available at http://www.asha.org/default.htm
Date
2015
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Publisher
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
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Research Projects
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Keywords
Autism, Intervention, Augmentative and alternative communication, Speech
Citation
Brady, Nancy C., Holly L. Storkel, Paige Bushnell, R. Michael Barker, Kate Saunders, Debby Daniels, and Kandace Fleming. "Investigating a Multimodal Intervention for Children With Limited Expressive Vocabularies Associated With Autism." American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology Am J Speech Lang Pathol 24.3 (2015): 438. http://dx.doi.org/10.1044/2015_AJSLP-14-0093 <2.897> .