Examining multimodal communication during social interactions: studies of minimally verbal autistic children and adolescents
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Abstract
Difficulties in communication during social interactions are a feature of the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Little is known about the communication abilities of minimally-verbal (MV) individuals, which comprises one-third of autistic individuals. Natural language sampling (NLS) provides an optimal approach to capture communication abilities in this population. The goal of this project was to use NLS methods to examine multimodal communication: speech, gesture, gesture-speech combinations, and augmentative and alternative communication in MV autistic children and adolescents during social interactions.Study 1 examined how and why MV autistic children and adolescents (N=50; 6-21 years; 12 females) used their communication abilities during social interactions. Unexpectedly, adolescents produced more gesture-speech combinations and communicative functions but did not differ in gesture frequency. I explored their range of communicative functions across different communication modalities. As hypothesized, they produced more requests using gesture but used speech more often to disagree/agree/acknowledge and to respond to questions. I investigated the concurrent relation between gestural communication and spoken language. As hypothesized, fewer speech utterances were related to more gesturing after accounting for age, nonverbal IQ, and receptive communication ability.
Study 2 explored how MV autistic children’s (N=47; 48-95 months; 10 females) modality and form of communication influenced parent responsivity. As expected, parents provided semantically-relevant (contingent) responses across children’s communication modalities. Unexpectedly, the precision of the child’s form (e.g., approximated gesture) did not influence parent contingent responding. I investigated the parent’s modality of response following the child’s modality of communication. Across children’s modalities of communication (e.g., gesture), parents responded most frequently using speech.
Study 3 evaluated the predictive role of gestural communication in later spoken language ability in MV autistic children (N=50; 54-105 months; 10 females) receiving intervention. Unexpectedly, frequency of deictic gestures did not predict speech outcomes. As hypothesized, supplementary combinations predicted speech outcomes.
Findings from this project underscore the importance of 1) examining multiple modalities and forms of communication to obtain a comprehensive understanding of communication skills; 2) inclusion of interactionist models to capture children’s input on parent responses in shaping language learning; and 3) the predictive role of gesture-speech combinations in facilitating spoken language outcomes.
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2023