Logan Kristy, Iacono Teresa, Trembath David
Faculty of Health, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
La Trobe Rural Health School and Living with Disability Research Centre, La Trobe University, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia.
Augment Altern Commun. 2024 Jun;40(2):125-139. doi: 10.1080/07434618.2023.2263558. Epub 2023 Oct 12.
Children who lack functional spoken language are candidates for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). Aided AAC and naturalistic interventions offer the potential to extend the communication functions demonstrated by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who are nonspeaking. Related intervention research, however, has been limited, in that interventions have generally targeted a limited range of communication functions taught in highly structured, decontextualized environments. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of an intervention that combined aided AAC with a naturalistic intervention - enhanced milieu teaching (AEMT) - to increase symbolic communication in children with autism spectrum disorder. Three children with autism spectrum disorder participated in a multiple probe design, in which a range of communication functions were targeted using the AEMT. Results showed increases in the use of symbolic communication from baseline to intervention phases, which were found to be statistically significant for two of the three children (phi 0.7-0.81; < .001). Intervention outcomes were generalized to a communication partner not involved in the intervention and maintained over time for all children. The study provides preliminary evidence that communication functions beyond object requests could be taught using a systematic, multi-element approach implemented across activities.
缺乏功能性口语的儿童适合使用辅助和替代沟通（AAC）方式。辅助性AAC和自然主义干预措施为扩展非言语自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童所展现的沟通功能提供了可能。然而，相关的干预研究一直很有限，因为干预措施通常针对在高度结构化、脱离情境的环境中教授的有限范围的沟通功能。本研究的目的是调查一种将辅助性AAC与自然主义干预——强化环境教学（AEMT）相结合的干预措施，以增加自闭症谱系障碍儿童的象征性沟通的效果。三名自闭症谱系障碍儿童参与了多探针设计，其中使用AEMT针对一系列沟通功能进行干预。结果显示，从基线期到干预期，象征性沟通的使用有所增加，三名儿童中有两名儿童的这一增加具有统计学意义（phi值为0.7 - 0.81；p < 0.001）。干预结果推广到了未参与干预的沟通伙伴，并且所有儿童的干预效果都随时间得以维持。该研究提供了初步证据，表明可以使用一种在各项活动中实施的系统、多要素方法来教授除物品请求之外的沟通功能。
