Poster #40 - A Storybook Reading Intervention: Parents’ Use of Naturalistic Communication Teaching Strategies.

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Developmental Disabilities

Integrative Statement

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may experience delays in their ability to speak and communicate with their parents, peers, and others. These children often benefit from evidence-based, parent-implemented communication interventions aimed at alleviating the impact of their delay or disability on their communicative interactions with others and at leading to a more socially interactive life.
Fortunately, many communication interventions with strong empirical evidence of effectiveness exist (Kaiser & Roberts, 2013; Meadan, Angell, Stoner, & Daczewitz, 2014). Some of those communication-teaching strategies include, environmental arrangement, modeling, mand-modeling, and time-delay. Parents are knowledgeable about their children and daily routines and, therefore, can create language rich environments for the child by embedding language and communication opportunities into daily routines and activities (Kashinath, Woods, & Goldstein, 2006). Parents are key communication partners because they can provide important social experiences, especially in the very early years, and opportunities to facilitate communication, language development, and social interactions.
One routine, shared storybook reading, is a naturalistic routine and social activity in which parents can promote cognitive, social engagement, and language and communication skills that match their children’s growing abilities (Fleury & Schwartz, 2016). Because shared storybook reading can be a daily routine, parents may be able to use book reading as a regular opportunity to embed naturalistic communication teaching strategies (NT strategies). However, for many children with ASD, it is necessary to use strategies that provide additional supports to facilitate the use of verbal and nonverbal language during shared storybook reading. These techniques can help refocus children’s attention on the book, provide feedback about their comments, and give them opportunities to connect the stories to their own lives (CONNECT, 2011; Ezell & Justice, 2005).
In our study, participating parents were trained and coached to use evidenced-based naturalistic communication teaching strategies (i.e., modeling, mand-model, and time delay) and storybook reading techniques while reading books with their children with ASD. Training and coaching were delivered in the participants’ homes. Using a multiple-baseline design across naturalistic teaching strategies within each family, we examined, (a) parents’ accurate and frequent use of the three NT strategies, (b) parents’ use of book reading techniques, and (c) perceptions of the parents and other adults (college students, practitioners) about the social validity of the goals, procedures, and outcomes of the intervention. The entire intervention period lasted 10 weeks. After training and coaching, parents used the Modeling, Mand-Model, and Time Delay strategies with higher rates and higher quality (accuracy). Children initiated more communicative acts upon parents’ use of Time Delay and increased their numbers of responses single and multiple word responses.
In this presentation we will present (a) the results of this single-case design study with two parent-child dyads, (b) describe the NT strategies and book reading techniques the parents used, (c) identify the procedures we used to deliver training and coaching, and (d) discuss implications for future research and practice. We will show video examples to illustrate parent training and coaching practices, and parents’ implementation of the strategies.

Authors

• Yusuf Akamoglu, University of Alabama
  Presenting Author

• Hedda Meadan, University of Illinois
  Non-Presenting Author