Potential communicative acts in children with autism spectrum disorders.

OBJECTIVE: To describe potential communicative acts in a sample of 17 children with autism spectrum disorders who produced few to no intelligible words (mean age = 32.82 months). METHODS: Parents reported on children's potential communicative acts for 10 different communicative functions. A potential communicative act was defined as any behavior produced by an individual that may be interpreted by others to serve a communicative purpose. RESULTS: Significant associations were found between higher number of gesture types and increased scores on language comprehension, language expression, and non-verbal thinking measures. Relative to other types of potential communicative acts, parents reported that children used higher proportions of body movement. CONCLUSION: Number of body movement types was not related to child ability, while number of gesture types was related to receptive and expressive language. Findings underscore the link between language and gesture, and offer support for an ecological systems perspective of language learning.

Communication ability in persons with trisomy 18 and trisomy 13.

The purpose of this study was to assess communication abilities among a sample of 10 individuals with Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 13. These 10 individuals were diagnosed with Trisomy 18 (n = 8) or Trisomy 13 (n = 2) and had a mean age of 15.96 years. The sample consisted of one male and nine females. Caregivers completed a case history and reported on words and gestures understood and/or produced. Participants were also videotaped during communication temptation tasks. Auditory comprehension was reported to be higher than expressive language. No participant produced intelligible words or word approximations, yet most produced hand gestures. The process and results of these 10 cases point to a potentially promising approach for assessing communication abilities in individuals with Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 13.

The development of proto-performative utterances in deaf toddlers.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to examine and compare the development of proto-imperative and proto-declarative utterances in normally developing, non-neonatally screened, profoundly deaf toddlers. METHOD: Both types of proto-declarative are considered to be the most basic prelinguistic and early linguistic communicative functions. Eighteen normally developing, non-neonatally screened, profoundly deaf toddlers participated in a longitudinal study. All children were enrolled in the same oral-aural home guidance program. At the time of the study, none of the children had received a cochlear implant. At the ages of 18, 24, and 30 months, proto-imperative utterances were elicited using an adapted version of M. Casby and J. A. Cumpata's (1986) Protocol for the Assessment of Prelinguistic Intentional Communication. For eliciting proto-declarative intentions, a video clip was used. RESULTS: Results revealed a significant increase in both frequency and level of utterances for both types of proto-performatives. Although there was a clear development from nonlinguistic toward linguistic communication, utterances remained predominantly deictic-gestural for the imperative intentions and referential-gestural for declaratives. CONCLUSIONS: The data support the notion from the literature that both types of performatives are susceptible to elicitation. Results also suggest that after neonatal screening, both total communication and oral-aural approaches might accelerate conventionalization of the earliest communicative utterances of profoundly deaf toddlers.

Multimodality: a basis for augmentative and alternative communication--psycholinguistic, cognitive, and clinical/educational aspects.

PURPOSE: Message generating is a complex process involving a number of processes, including the selection of modes to use. When expressing a message, human communicators typically use a combination of modes. This phenomenon is often termed multimodality. This article explores the use of models that explain multimodality as an explanatory framework for augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). METHOD: Multimodality is analysed from a communication, psycholinguistic, and cognitive perspective. RESULTS: Theoretical and applied topics within AAC can be explained or described within the multimodality framework considering iconicity, simultaneous communication, lexical organization, and compatibility of communication modes. CONCLUSION: Consideration of multimodality is critical to understanding underlying processes in individuals who use AAC and individuals who interact with them.