It has been found that incorporating preferences leads to improvements in target skills for children with autism. No studies have been found, however, that assess the preferences of children for prosody of teacher instruction. Prosody has been defined by fluency of speech, modification of pitch and stress of syllables. This research assessed the preference for, and effectiveness of, prosody of instruction by teachers of children with autism. The preferences of children with autism for monotone, conversational and enthusiastic voice prosodies were assessed. The children's teachers made recording of their own voice reading a story passage in the three selected prosodies. The children with autism were requested to listen to these recordings and select a preferred prosody over thirty three trials. Chi square analyses were conducted to determine the significant preferences from these trials. The selections of prosody of the children with autism were compared with the selections of typical children of the same age. Significant preferences were found for three children with autism and seven typical children. The three children with autism with significant preferences were observed in their classrooms. Teachers were cued with flashcards to use the different prosodies and the children's responses were recorded. An additional twenty instructions were recorded in which the teachers were not given a cue for voice prosody Chi square and Fisher's exact tests indicated that children's preferences did not influence their responses to prosody during classroom instruction. In other words the response in class was not related to prosody preference. Overall children were more likely to not respond to the monotone prosody. The enthusiastic and conversational prosodies were equally effective. Therefore it was concluded that continued and varied use of enthusiastic and conversational prosodies during classroom instruction would be effective for children with autism. It was recommended that future research focus on evaluating the effectiveness of variety of prosody for children with autism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217158 |
| Date | January 1998 |
| Creators | Lamers, Kirsty A, mikewood@deakin.edu.au |
| Publisher | Deakin University. School of Studies in Disability |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://www.deakin.edu.au/disclaimer.html), Copyright Kirsty A Lamers |
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