Autism- Ch. 15

Question 1

According to the authors, why are children who are diagnosed with autism good candidates for using AAC?

Answer 1

Their characteristics are a good match to the skills needed for using AAC (considered to be visual learners).

Question 2

Was the Facilitated Communication technique that was introduced in 1990 a valid technique to teach and aid with speech?

Answer 2

NO

Question 3

What is the Picture Exchange Communication System used for? Describe it

Answer 3

PECS is a manualized treatment for beginning communicators that involves six phases

Question 4

What are the phases of a PECS program?

Answer 4

a. Physical exchange
b. Expanding Spontaneity
c. Picture Discrimination
d. Sentence Structure
e. Responding to “What do you want”
f. Responsive and Spontaneous commenting

Question 5

9. The aggregated evidence from studies that compared PECS with manual signing suggest that __________ is more effective in terms of requesting (manding), but ___________ is slightly more effective in speech production (the latter is from Tincani, 2004)

Answer 5

1. PECS

2. Sign language

Question 6

Two studies examined the effects of speech output on speech production. What did they suggest?

Answer 6

The studies suggested contradictory evidence. The first said speech increased when software was provided. The second found no increases.

Question 7

What are three advantages and a disadvantage of using signs and gestures?

Answer 7

a. Advantages
i. Learning manual signs or gestures has numerous specific advantages over learning speech.
ii. May be an easier option than speech
iii. If an individual does not possess a strong motor or vocal imitative repertoire, then it might be less difficult to teach them the imitation of motor movements than to teach echoing a word????
b. Disadvantages
i. The demands it places on communication partners
ii. Might struggle with more abstract signs
iii. The learning demands for the community to communicate with a child with autism via manual signing.

Question 8

Based on the evidence that is provided in this chapter, can we draw any solid conclusions about whether or not AAC is effective in bringing about speech production? What was one difficulty in comparing studies that attempted to answer this question?

Answer 8

Statistical analyses revealed that AAC interventions were equally effective in promoting imitative versus spontaneous speech.