Abstract
Community participation is vital to children’s development and provides opportunities to practice social communication skills. Although previous studies suggest that young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience decreased community participation, there is little empirical evidence on the precise patterns of participation that may influence social communication opportunities. Therefore, this pilot study investigated the communication among families of children with ASD (n = 5) versus typical development (TD; n = 5) across various community locations. We used automated, objective measures: the Language ENvironmental Analysis (LENA) system™ to measure the amount of communication and integrated this with a Global Positioning System (GPS; that is, Qstarz™) to measure community location. Results showed that families of children with ASD and TD spent a similar amount of time in community locations; however, there were differences in the amount of adult talk directed toward children with ASD versus TD across community locations. Findings suggest that automated measures may be successfully integrated to quantify social communication during community participation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 124-130 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | OTJR Occupation, Participation and Health |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Apr 1 2019 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The research reported here was supported by the Human Development Institute Fund for Excellence Endowment.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.
Keywords
- GPS
- LENA
- participation
- young children with autism spectrum disorder
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Occupational Therapy