TITLE:
Teaching Intraverbal Storytelling to Children with Autism and Other Cases of Language Delays
AUTHORS:
Daniel Carvalho de Matos, Pollianna Galvão Soares de Matos, Rosana Mendes Éleres de Figueiredo
KEYWORDS:
Intraverbal Storytelling, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Language Delay, School
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.8 No.6,
April
30,
2017
ABSTRACT: In Brazil, it is estimated that there are approximately 2 million youngsters and children diagnosed with autism and other cases of learning disabilities, a factor that has led to an increase on the demand for treatment aimed at the development of basic and academic skills, such as reading, writing, fluency in interpreting texts, recalling and retelling a story dictated by a teacher. The purpose of the present investigation was to assess the efficacy of a procedure to teach intraverbal storytelling to four Brazilian children (two autistic and two with language delays). Three stories were taught to each participant and each story comprised four segments represented by pictures and written scripts. The participants had opportunities to read the scripts with help from the experimenter if necessary and, after an interval, they had to retell the stories. During training, echoic and visual prompts were administered as corrections whenever a given child was unable to retell a given segment appropriately. Correct responses free from prompts resulted in praise and a token. After gathering a given number of tokens, the participants could exchange them for a preferred item like a toy or a favorite activity. As result, the participants were able to retell the stories correctly when compared to baseline levels. Only one was unable to retell all the segments of the third story, probably because she did not have more time to be exposed to the programming contingencies due to the period of recess from school. The results provide education professionals with specific directions for advocacy and service delivery that aim to enhance school outcomes for students with ASD.