The Spoken Language and Social Communication Characteristics of Adolescents in Behavioral Schools: A Controlled Comparison Study

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-127
Author(s):  
Karen James ◽  
Natalie Munro ◽  
Leanne Togher ◽  
Reinie Cordier

Purpose Working with students with emotional behavioral disorders is a challenging area of speech-language pathology practice. In this study, we compare and profile the narrative discourse, structural language, and social communication characteristics of adolescents attending behavioral support and mainstream schools. We also examine relationships between narratives, structural language, social communication, and behavior. Method Fifty-four students aged between 12 and 16 years participated. Twenty-seven students were from 3 Australian government Schools for Specific Purposes for students with behavioral difficulties, and 27 typically developing students were from a mainstream, government school. Students were matched for age and closely matched for sex and socioeconomic status. All students completed 3 communication assessments: oral narrative, structural language, and social communication skills. Teachers were asked to complete 2 behavioral questionnaires. Results Students in behavioral schools had significant difficulties generating narratives. Their structural language and overall social communication skills were also significantly poorer than their mainstream peers. One third of the behavioral group experienced significant difficulties across all 3 of these communication areas. Externalizing behavior was significantly related to narrative, structural language, and social communication only when the data were pooled across both groups. Conclusions Language and social communication difficulties were evident in adolescents who attend alternative school settings—behavioral schools. These findings confirm the need for speech-language pathologists to be engaged in specialist behavioral schools and provide impetus to service providers, speech-language pathologists, and educators to address relationships between behavior and communication ability.

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunge Fan ◽  
Ning Ma ◽  
Liang Ma ◽  
Wufang Zhang ◽  
Wei Xu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Peer-delivered services potentially provide broad, multifaceted benefits for persons suffering severe mental illness. Most studies to date have been conducted in countries with well-developed outpatient mental health systems. The objective of this study was to examine the feasibility for developing a community-based peer service in China. Methods Thirteen peer service providers and 54 consumers were recruited from four communities in Beijing. We initiated the program in two communities, followed by another two in order to verify and add to our understanding of potential scalable feasibility. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted 12 month after initiation at each site to measure satisfaction and perceived benefits from perspectives of peer service providers, and consumers and their caregivers. Results Key stakeholders reported that peer support services were satisfying and beneficial. Eleven of 13 peer service providers were willing to continue in their roles. Ten, 8, and 7 of them perceived improvements in working skills, social communication skills, and mood, respectively. Among consumers, 39 of 54 were satisfied with peer services. Improvements in mood, social communication skills, illness knowledge, and illness stability were detected among 23, 18, 13, and 13 consumers, respectively. For caregivers, 31 of 32 expressed a positive view regarding peer services. Caregivers reported improvement in their own mood, confidence in recovery of their family members, and reduction in caretaker burdens. Conclusions The findings highlight that peer-delivered services have promise in China for benefiting persons with severe mental illness and their family caregivers, as well as the peer service providers themselves.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 290-303
Author(s):  
P. Charlie Buckley ◽  
Kimberly A. Murza ◽  
Tami Cassel

Purpose The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of special education practitioners (i.e., speech-language pathologists, special educators, para-educators, and other related service providers) on their role as communication partners after participation in the Social Communication and Engagement Triad (Buckley et al., 2015 ) yearlong professional learning program. Method A qualitative approach using interviews and purposeful sampling was used. A total of 22 participants who completed participation in either Year 1 or Year 2 of the program were interviewed. Participants were speech-language pathologists, special educators, para-educators, and other related service providers. Using a grounded theory approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967 ) to data analysis, open, axial, and selective coding procedures were followed. Results Three themes emerged from the data analysis and included engagement as the goal, role as a communication partner, and importance of collaboration. Conclusions Findings supported the notion that educators see the value of an integrative approach to service delivery, supporting students' social communication and engagement across the school day but also recognizing the challenges they face in making this a reality.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-28
Author(s):  
Todd M. Miller ◽  
Kathy Thiemann-Bourque

A growing body of evidence has supported the use of peer-mediated interventions to increase the social-communication skills of students with a variety of developmental disabilities, including autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Despite these promising results, however, many practitioners may struggle to effectively implement peer-mediated interventions across the diverse presentation and skill profiles of students with ASD, specifically in accommodating the unique language and communication needs of their students. This article presents an example of integrating written-graphic and text cues into a peer-mediated intervention for three elementary-age students with ASD. Emphasis is placed on describing the teaching procedures used to encourage students with ASD and peers to participate in shared games and activities together, using written-graphic and text cues to support appropriate social communication. Additionally, strategies for selecting and including typically-developing peers to participate in social skills programming are reviewed. Data collected throughout the peer-mediated intervention demonstrates the positive effect of systematic social skills instruction for both students with disabilities and their peers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexis Federico ◽  
Dexin Shi ◽  
Jessica Bradshaw

Understanding the convergence between parent report and clinician observation measures of development is important and became even more critical during the COVID-19 pandemic as clinician contact with families was significantly limited. Previous research points to inconsistencies in the degree of agreement between parents and clinicians and very little research has examined these associations for infants within the first year of life. This study investigated the association between parent report and clinician observation measures of social communication and motor skills in 27 young infants who were assessed at 9 and 12 months of age. Results suggest a strong relation between clinician and parent rated motor skills, but weak to moderate associations between clinician and parent rated communication skills. Infant temperament played a significant role in parent ratings of infant communication. Together, these results provide support for data collection via parent report or clinician observation of infant motor skills, but suggest that multiple measures of infant communication may be helpful to obtain high-quality, perhaps more accurate, assessment social-communication skills. Specifically, multiple parent report measures along with an observation of parent-infant interactions will likely provide a more rich and accurate characterization of infant social-communication abilities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 03 (08) ◽  
pp. 360-374
Author(s):  
Lamia Yassin ZUGHAYER

The research problem lies in the following questions: What is the nature of the correlation between social communication skills and self-transcendence among middle school teachers, and does this relationship differ according to gender? Therefore, the current research aims to identify: 1-The social communication skills of middle school teachers. 2- Self-transcendence among middle school teachers. 3- The relationship between social communication skills and self- transcendence among middle school teachers 4 - The difference in the relationship between social communication skills and self-transcendence among middle school teachers according to the gender variable (male - female).For the purpose of verifying this, the scale of social communication skills prepared by Al-Samadoni and built according to the Reggio model, which includes (32) items, as well as the scale of self-transcendence prepared by Abdel Wahab, which includes (57) items, was used. The two scales were applied to a sample of (120) chosen by the random cluster method ,The results of the research showed that the social communication skills of middle school teachers were respectively social control, social expression and social sensitivity. As for self transcendence, it appeared that they enjoy a high level of self-transcendence, and that there is a statistically significant relationship between social communication skills and self-transcendence, and there are no differences in the relationship Between social communication skills and self-transcendence can be traced back to the gender variable, and in light of these results, the current research reached a set of recommendations and suggestions. Keywords: Social Communication Skills, Self-Transcendence, Middle School Teachers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-168
Author(s):  
Sudarman Sudarman ◽  
Roy Romey Daulas M

Background: Family is the most important role in a child's life, a place where he learns and expresses himself as a social creature, because the family provides the basis for the formation of personality, character, morals, socio-cultural and religious development as the first and foremost education place for children. The character development, morals and social development is very much influenced by parenting style and the playing pattern of child. Objective,to find out whether there is an influence of parenting style and playing patterns towards the ability of Social Communication in Children with Autism in the City of Surakarta. Methods: This type of research is a quantitative study with an observational analytic design through a cross sectional approach. This research will be conducted in the residency of Surakarta, in this study there is no intervention or treatment of respondents, and only observed once and do not follow up. Instrument, The instrument used to measure parenting style and playing patterns as well as children's social communication skills is a questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of three parts: the parenting style questionnaire aims to find out the form of parenting for children with autism. The play pattern questionnaire aims to find out the shape of the game patterns given to children with autism, and the social communication skills questionnaire aims to find out the social communication skills of children with autism. Results: Correlation statistical test using Spearmen`s rho analysis on parenting style variables with children's social communication skills obtained p value (sig.) 0.006, which means the value of p value 0.006 <0.05 means that there is a relationship between the form of parenting style h with communication skills social children, with a positive correlation with weak strength (r count 0.393); while variable on play patterns with social communication skills obtained p value 0.011 <0.05 means that there is a relationship between the form of play patterns with children's social communication skills, with a positive correlation direction and moderate strength (r count 0.363). Conclusion: Multivariate test results with multiple logistic regression showed that the R Square value of 0.057, which means that the parenting style variable and playing patterns can increase social communication skills of children with autism by 0.5% and the rest are explained in other factors outside the research model.


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