Interactions with children with autism spectrum disorders in a speech therapy setting / Zeena Mahmood Ameen

• Main Author: Zeena, Mahmood Ameen
• Format: Thesis
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: P Philology. Linguistics
• Online Access: http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/9316/1/Zeena_Mahmood_Ameen.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/9316/6/Zeena_Mahmood_thesis.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/9316/

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are associated with impairments in communication, social interaction, and restricted and repetitive behaviours. Therefore, communicating with children with ASD (CWASD) can be challenging even to a professional such as the speech-language therapist who provides them with speech and language therapy. This study, which analyses the interaction between a speech-language therapist and nine CWASD, aims to introduce several of the problems faced by the speech-language therapist during speech therapy sessions.The problems faced are behavioural characteristics of ASD that have to be addressed, and these problems become Smaller Short-Term Goals (SSTG) to be achieved by the speech-language therapist. Several ways in which the speech-language therapist communicates with CWASD in order to overcome the problems faced in achieving her Short-Term Goals (STG) are discussed in this study. Video-recordings of therapy sessions were analysed and interview sessions were conducted with the speech-language therapist. This study discovered that the speech-language therapistachieves her SSTG prior to achieving her STG.The findings of this study would be useful for parents of children with ASD and other speech-language therapists.