AAC narrative intervention for children with autism

Abstract

In research, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions have primarily focused on teaching children to make requests; however, AAC intervention should not stop there. There is a dearth of AAC intervention research targeting other communicative functions, despite there being a significant need to enhance children’s communication competence in a variety of social and educational contexts. The purpose of this study was to examine the initial efficacy and feasibility of an AAC narrative intervention on the picture-supported retelling skills of three children with autism, aged 6–9 years old. This multiple baseline across participants design study was preregistered at Open Science Framework (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/29SFP). We measured the effect of the intervention on children’s inclusion and complexity of story grammar elements and the variety of symbols used to retell untrained stories during a baseline condition, just before each intervention session, immediately following each intervention session, and three weeks after the last intervention session. Parents completed a feasibility questionnaire and documented their children’s generalized use of AAC. The AAC narrative intervention improved children’s AAC retells, with ascending trends in the intervention condition and scores elevated above baseline after 3 weeks. Parents reported that they perceived the intervention to be appropriate, effective, enjoyable, and planned to use it themselves after the study. Generalized use of AAC outside of intervention sessions was documented for all three participants.