Enhancing Early Language in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

When Asking Questions is Not Enough: An Observational Study of Social Communication Differences in High Functioning Children with Autism

“…Asking questions facilitates the initiation of an interaction and necessitates a response, typically verbal. Interventions for young children with autism aimed at enhancing communication with peers often teach peers to explicitly ''say your partner's name'' as a means to establish joint attention first, and then continue with the interaction (Paul and Sutherland 2005). From this study we learned that questions may be sufficient to attain the attentional focus of verbal children with autism who have higher expressive vocabulary.…”

The effects of embodied rhythm and robotic interventions on the spontaneous and responsive verbal communication skills of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A further outcome of a pilot randomized controlled trial

“…We hypothesized that social verbalization in the movement groups would at the very least be comparable to that seen in the comparison group. Conventionally, tabletop activities have been used in school settings to facilitate verbal communication skills in children with ASD (Goldstein, 2002; Paul & Sutherland, 2005). Therefore to mimic these settings, the comparison group was confined to the table, which provided adults with multiple opportunities to engage in reciprocal conversations with children, possibly contributing to high levels of social verbalization.…”

“…Current autism interventions can be classified into two types – communication interventions that primarily facilitate speech or provide children with alternative modes of communication and holistic interventions that facilitate language and related skills such as JA, play, and motor imitation (Delprato, 2001; Paul & Sutherland, 2005). Communication interventions include contemporary behavioral interventions (Hart & Risley, 1968; Lovaas, 1987; Lovaas, 2003; McGee, Krantz, Mason, & McClannahan, 1983) based on principles of applied behavioral analysis (ABA) as well as augmentative and alternative communication strategies such as sign language training (Sundberg & Partington, 1998), pictorial communication systems (Bondy & Frost, 2003), and voice output communication aids (VOCAs) (Paul & Sutherland, 2005).…”

“…Communication interventions include contemporary behavioral interventions (Hart & Risley, 1968; Lovaas, 1987; Lovaas, 2003; McGee, Krantz, Mason, & McClannahan, 1983) based on principles of applied behavioral analysis (ABA) as well as augmentative and alternative communication strategies such as sign language training (Sundberg & Partington, 1998), pictorial communication systems (Bondy & Frost, 2003), and voice output communication aids (VOCAs) (Paul & Sutherland, 2005). Contemporary ABA interventions use stimuli centered on the child’s interests to promote spoken language using repeated practice and reinforcement within naturalistic environments (Delprato, 2001; Goldstein, 2002; Rogers & Vismara, 2008).…”

“…For example, the PECS approach teaches children to request and comment using pictures (Bondy & Frost, 2003, Charlop-Christy, Carpenter, Le, LeBlanc, & Kellet, 2002). Lastly, VOCAs are high-tech electronic devices that allow the child to type a response or select a picture that triggers a spoken output generated by a device with speech synthesis capacity (Paul & Sutherland, 2005). In contrast to communication-based interventions, holistic interventions including developmental pragmatic approaches such as Floortime (Wieder & Greenspan, 2003), the Denver Model (Rogers, Herbison, Lewis, Pantone, & Reis, 1986), and Social Communication, Emotional Regulation and Transactional Support (Prizant, Wetherby, Rubin, Laurent, & Rydell, 2006) aim to facilitate the full range of developmental skills including eye contact, gestures, imitation, play, shared affect, vocalization, and speech within naturalistic settings, to mimic the typical developmental sequence of language acquisition (Landa, 2007; Paul & Sutherland, 2005; Rogers & Vismara, 2008).…”