Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities

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eaches for the item, the researcher purposefully might ignore, ask a question (what do you want), or give an incorrect response (e.g., food instead of the toy requested by child) to create communication breakdown. In naturalistic approach, on the other hand, the researcher observes interactions of student with a social partner during natural routines (e.g., child and mother interaction during free play). Then, s/he evaluates how frequently breakdowns occur, how frequently student attempts to repair, and how often these repair attempts are understood by social partners. Each approach has both advantages and disadvantages. An advantage of structured approach is that all of the participants receive equal number of opportunities to respond to a communication breakdown; therefore, it is feasible to compare repair strategies across students. Another advantage is that the approach is time efficient because it is possible to sample a great number of behaviors in a very short time. However, we cannot assess frequency of communication breakdowns using this approach. In such case, naturalistic approach would be more appropriate. Another advantage to naturalistic approach may be that student might be able to understand the communicative intent of social partners more easily (e.g. mother and teachers) than they do that of an unfamiliar partner. Similarly, it might be more difficult for social partners to interpret and respond to student’s communication behaviors. Therefore, students are more likely to persist in their communication attempts with familiar partners (Halle et al., 2004). To date, only one study included communication breakdown of students who are nonverbal in natural environment. Keen (2005) examined the communication repair strategies of six non verbal young students with autism. Results of this study showed that participants attempted to repair breakdowns in communication with their mothers using repetitions, augmentations and substitutions. However, authors analyzed the breakdown repair strategies displayed by only six students with autism who were nonverbal during mother child interaction. This study should be replicated and extended to larger number of student as well as other contexts. It is also critical to extend the study to another culture and to a language other than English. The purpose of this study was to analyze communication repair strategies produced by twenty-six nonverbal students with developmental disabilities while interacting with their teachers during free play. The following questions were addressed: 1. How frequently did students initiate communication, what percentage of initiation resulted in communication breakdown, and what percentage of breakdowns was repaired by the students? 2. What types of repair strategies were produced by the students during interactions with their teachers? 3. Did repair strategies used by students vary according to the type of breakdowns produced by teachers? Method Participants Teacher participants. All teacher participants were female. Four of the five teachers who participated in this study had Bachelor’s degrees, and one had a master’s degree in special education. Their teaching experiences ranged from two to 12 years. Participants were selected based on two criteria: (a) had non verbal students with disabilities in their classrooms, (b) willing to participate into this study. Student participants. Participants of the study were twenty-six students with development disabilities. There were 19 boys and 7 girls with a mean age of 6.23 (ranging from 4 to 11). They were recruited in two different units serving students with developmental disabilities located in a university in Turkey (Institute of Research for the Handicapped; and Education, Training, and Research Center for Speech and Language Disorders). Table 1 illustrates student demographic information. As can be seen in Table 1, students’ diagnoses included mental retardation, Down syndrome, and autism/mental retardation. In Turkey, because there are no reliable and valid standardized tools available to diagnose students with disabilities and evaluate their cognitive and language abilities, these students typically were evaluated based on informal evaluations by varying professionals (e.g., Communication Breakdown / 401
TABLE 1 Students’ Description Subject Age Gender Diagnosis Primary Communication Form Used by Participant 1 4 Male Down Syndrome Gestures (reaching, pulling someone’s hand, etc) and vocalizations 2 6 Male Down Syndrome Gestures and word approximations. 3 5 Male Down Syndrome Gestures (pointing, reaching, giving/offering, showing an object, etc) and vocalizations 4 8 Female Down Syndrome Gestures, two words (e.g. mummy, want) and word approximations. 5 9 Male Down Syndrome Gestures and word approximations. 6 4 Male Down Syndrome Gestures (pointing, vocalizing, reaching, giving/ offering, showing an object, etc.) and vocalizations 7 6 Male Down Syndrome Gestures and word approximations. 8 8 Male Down Syndrome Gestures, two words (e.g. mummy, go) and word approximations. 9 5 Male Down Syndrome Gestures (pointing, vocalizing, reaching, giving/ offering, showing an object, etc.) and vocalizations 10 4 Male Down Syndrome Gestures (pointing, vocalizing, reaching, giving/ offering, showing an object, etc.) and vocalizations 11 4 Male Down Syndrome Gestures (pointing, vocalizing, reaching, giving/ offering, showing an object, etc.) and vocalizations 12 9 Female Down Syndrome Gestures, three words (e.g. mummy, want, go) and word approximations. 13 4 Male Down Syndrome Gestures (pointing, vocalizing, reaching, giving/ offering, showing an object, etc.) and vocalizations 14 4 Female Down Syndrome Gestures and vocalizations 15 6 Female Down Syndrome Gestures, one word (e.g. mummy), and word approximations. 16 4 Male Down Syndrome Gestures (pointing, vocalizing, reaching, giving/ offering, showing an object, etc.) and vocalizations 17 6 Male Autism Gestures, one word (e.g. mummy) and word approximations. 18 6 Male Autism Gestures, one word (e.g. mummy) and word approximations. 19 4 Male Autism Gestures (pointing, vocalizing, reaching, giving/ offering, showing an object, etc.) and vocalizations 20 1 Female Pervasive developmental Gestures, two words (e.g. mummy, go) and word disabilities approximations. 21 7 Female Pervasive developmental Gestures, two words (e.g. mummy, want) and disabilities word approximations. 22 9 Male Pervasive developmental Gestures, three words (mummy, go, want) and disabilities word approximations. 23 8 Male Pervasive developmental disabilities Gestures, three words (e.g., mummy, dady, want) and word approximations. 402 / Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities-September 2010
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Education and Training in Autism an
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Manuscripts Accepted for Future Pub
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dents in classes that included stud
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TABLE 1 Summary Descriptors of Meli
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tions were conducted at their work
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her function more independently wit
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eluctant to engage in interactions.
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ehaviors were consistent with Phill
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disabilities. Second, it has promot
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youth with severe disabilities. Min
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parents of students with intellectu
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tributed to such PSE program compon
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TABLE 2 Mean Scores of the 7 PSE Pr
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that educators’ and parents’ po
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gan, 1997). Despite the challenges
Page 33 and 34: ing the total score of the Family A
Page 35 and 36: with the identified factors being r
Page 37 and 38: of a positive outlook has been docu
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Page 41 and 42: TABLE 1 Demographic Characteristics
Page 43 and 44: ways in the same interviews where s
Page 45 and 46: In a number of comments, respondent
Page 47 and 48: practitioners assigned both issues
Page 51 and 52: eliability (r .92) and good inter-
Page 53 and 54: TABLE 2 EQCA Adaptive Behaviors: Me
Page 55 and 56: TABLE 5 ERDCP: Means, SDs, and t Te
Page 57 and 58: teen of these studies (90%) reveale
Page 59 and 60: practice may have had an influence
Page 63 and 64: ing to questions, (c) the learner f
Page 65 and 66: around a small instructional table
Page 67 and 68: TABLE 2 (Continued) 9. Guide studen
Page 69 and 70: TABLE 3 (Continued) Student Steps B
Page 71 and 72: TABLE 3 (Continued) Student Steps D
Page 73 and 74: esponding to errors by interrupting
Page 75 and 76: Figure 1. Teacher’s number of ste
Page 77 and 78: Figure 2. Number of inquiry skills
Page 79 and 80: TABLE 4 Results of Parent Survey It
Page 81 and 82: data was not simply an artifact of
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Page 87 and 88: served a communicative function. In
Page 89 and 90: Descriptive Analysis The first rese
Page 91 and 92: eakdown whenever it is the case. He
Page 95 and 96: stood attribution when two consecut
Page 97 and 98: within easy reach. The instructiona
Page 99 and 100: and provided Takao a pen with thin
Page 101 and 102: Figure 3. Percentages of correct re
Page 103 and 104: teacher whether we should fully hon
Page 107 and 108: components to be effective promptin
Page 109 and 110: ability (IQ 44, Stanford-Binet Inte
Page 111 and 112: TABLE 1 Task Analysis for Cooking R
Page 113 and 114: pographic); and (c) no response, ch
Page 115 and 116: Figure 2. Percentage of steps perfo
Page 117 and 118: Figure 4. Percentage of steps perfo
Page 119 and 120: ture audio feature of the PDA, but
Page 121 and 122: M. (1992). The effects of self oper
Page 125 and 126: TABLE 1 Stages of The Halliwick’s
Page 127 and 128: plete other steps (Tekin & Kɹrcaal
Page 129 and 130: Figure 1. Percentage of correct res
Page 131 and 132: Martin, J. (1981). The Halliwick Me
Page 133 and 134: systematic instruction to teach fou
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also extremely low with a standard
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Procedural reliability probes measu
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Discussion The purpose of this stud
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(1986). Stanford-Binet Intelligence
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focus on the important adults in th
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cording to the current environment
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that “she felt very inadequate in
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tive research. (2 nd Ed.). New Jers
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