Automated Measures to Understand Communication Opportunities for Young Children With Autism in the Community: A Pilot Study

Lauren M. Little, Joanne P. Rojas, Anna Bard, Ying Luo, Dwight Irvin, Beth Rous

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

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 languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)124-130
Number of pages7
JournalOTJR Occupation, Participation and Health
Volume39
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2019.

Keywords

  • GPS
  • LENA
  • participation
  • young children with autism spectrum disorder

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Occupational Therapy

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