Poster #44 - Comparing Communicative Gestural Functions and Co-speech Gestures in Minimally Verbal Children and Adolescents with ASD

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Developmental Disabilities

Integrative Statement

Background: Individuals with ASD demonstrate difficulties in the use of communicative gestures, or spontaneous hand or body movements that are directed to a conversational partner (de Marchena & Eigsti, 2010). The communicative functions of the gestures of minimally verbal (MV) individuals with ASD and how these gestural functions and co-speech gestures differ between children and adolescents, has not been studied, even though approximately 30% of children with ASD remain MV into adulthood (Tager-Flusberg & Kasari, 2013). This study will provide a deeper understanding of the communicative intent of gestures in individuals with ASD who are MV to further explore this heterogeneous phenotype.
Objective: To compare gestural functions and co-speech gestures of MV children and adolescents with ASD.
Methods: Twenty-five MV children with ASD (MV_C; 19 males; Mage: 8.92 years) and 25 MV adolescents with ASD (MV_A; 19 males; Mage: 15.89 years) were administered the ADOS (n=50 Module 1). Transcripts of the ADOS sessions were coded for gestural functions and co-speech gestures by a primary coder and 20% of the transcripts were coded by a reliability coder (gestural functions, κ = .890; co-speech gestures, κ = .892). Function was assessed in terms of the communicative intent (e.g., request, share attention, responding to a question, disagreeing, protesting) of the gestural form (e.g., point, nod, shake). Co-speech gestures were categorized as reinforcing speech (utterances that are redundant with the information indicated by the gesture), supplementary speech (utterances that add information to what the gesture indicates), or other speech (utterances that are transcribed as unintelligible but are accompanied by a gesture).
Results: Both groups, on average, produced fewer than two gestures and did not differ in their communicative intent when pointing (request, share attention, unclear), using a point approximation (request, share attention, unclear), reaching (request, share attention, unclear), using a reach approximation (request, share attention, unclear), head shaking (responding to a question, disagreeing, protesting), waving (greeting, request), beckoning (request), and using hands up (all done/stop; see Table 1). However, MV_A nodded more as a function to respond to a question (Mean rank = 28.5; U = 237.5, p = .010, r = .36) and to acknowledge/agree with the conversational partner (Mean rank = 29; U = 225, p = .005, r = .40) as compared to MV_C (Mean rank = 22.5, Mean rank = 22, respectively). For co-speech gestures, MV_A used more reinforcing speech (Mean rank = 29) compared to MV_C (Mean rank = 22; U = 225, p = .005, r = .40), yet groups did not differ in their use of supplementary (U = 285, p = .545, r = .09) or other speech (U = 252.5, p = .158, r = .20; see Figure 1).
Conclusion: Findings highlight few developmental differences between MV_C and MV_A in the communicative intent of their gestures, as demonstrated during the interactive ADOS sessions. Overall, use of gestures and co-speech gestures were very low, suggesting that MV individuals with ASD are not compensating for decreased verbal output via communicative gestures when engaging with a conversational partner.

Authors

• Chelsea La Valle, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Daniela Plesa-Skwerer, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Helen Tager-Flusberg, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author