The Influence Of The Independent Intervention Program Training And Workshop On Cognitive Skills Of Parents Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

AbstractPrevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children has been increasing over the years. These children, when compared to typically growing children, face challenges in leading a day-to-day life. Other than the social interactions, communication and cognitive skills, psychomotor skill deficits are also found in them. This paper focuses on enhancement of psychomotor skills in children with ASD by employing a mechatronic training kit. Training using this kit aims at developing skills like ‘palmar grasp’, ‘wrist rotation’ and ‘eye-hand coordination’. Trials were conducted with six children with autism aged between four and nine years. Significant improvements were seen in these children both in skills and in behaviour after the training. Thus, teaching psychomotor skills to children with autism using the newly developed mechatronic door training kit is found to be working and the results are encouraging.

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The Use of Hand Gestures to Communicate About Nonpresent Objects in Mind Among Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2015_jslhr-l-14-0213 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 58 (2) ◽

pp. 373-382 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Wing-Chee So ◽

Ming Lui ◽

Tze-Kiu Wong ◽

Long-Tin Sit

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Intervention Program ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Spatial Skills ◽

Typically Developing Children ◽

Visual Spatial ◽

Children With Asd

Purpose The current study examined whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), in comparison with typically developing children, perceive and produce gestures to identify nonpresent objects (i.e., referent-identifying gestures), which is crucial for communicating ideas in a discourse. Method An experimenter described the uses of daily-life objects to 6- to 12-year-old children both orally and with gestures. The children were then asked to describe how they performed daily activities using those objects. Results All children gestured. A gesture identified a nonpresent referent if it was produced in the same location that had previously been established by the experimenter. Children with ASD gestured at the specific locations less often than typically developing children. Verbal and spatial memory were positively correlated with the ability to produce referent-identifying gestures for all children. However, the positive correlation between Raven's Children Progressive Matrices score and the production of referent-identifying gestures was found only in children with ASD. Conclusions Children with ASD might be less able to perceive and produce referent-identifying gestures and may rely more heavily on visual–spatial skills in producing referent-identifying gestures. The results have clinical implications for designing an intervention program to enhance the ability of children with ASD to communicate about nonpresent objects with gestures.

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Narrative Intervention for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2015_jslhr-l-14-0295 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 58 (3) ◽

pp. 920-933 ◽

Cited By ~ 24

Author(s):

Sandra Laing Gillam ◽

Daphne Hartzheim ◽

Breanna Studenka ◽

Vicki Simonsmeier ◽

Ronald Gillam

Keyword(s):

Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽

Mental State ◽

Intervention Program ◽

Children With Autism ◽

Autism Spectrum ◽

Spectrum Disorder ◽

Design Data ◽

Story Structure ◽

Narrative Intervention ◽

Causal Language

Purpose This study was conducted to determine whether a narrative intervention program that targeted the use of mental state and causal language resulted in positive gains in narrative production for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Method Five children (2 girls and 3 boys) who had been diagnosed with ASD participated in the study. Children ranged in age from 8 to 12 years and were recruited through an autism clinic. Intervention was provided for two 50-min individual sessions per week for a total of 21–33 sessions (depending on the student). Children's spontaneous stories, collected weekly, were analyzed for overall story complexity, story structure, and the use of mental state and causal language. Following a multiple-baseline across-participants design, data were collected for lagged baseline and intervention phases over a 6-month period. Results All of the children made gains on all 3 measures of narration after participating in the instruction, with clear changes in level for all 5 children and changes in trend for 4 of the 5 children. The gains were maintained after intervention was discontinued. Conclusion The results demonstrate the efficacy of the 3-phase narrative instruction program for improving the fictional narration abilities of children with ASD.

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