Oral narrative intervention with children with autism spectrum disorder and language disorder

Narratives are temporally sequenced accounts of events and have a broad importance to social, academic and language development. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) characteristically have difficulties with social communication and have been found to produce narratives that are less structurally complex than typically developing peers. Five papers are included in this thesis by publication. In the first paper a systematic literature review is presented examining research into the effects of narrative intervention on the oral narratives of children with communication disorders. Overall the literature supports the use of narrative intervention to develop narrative macrostructure in children with oral communication disorders. Only four studies included participants with a diagnosis of ASD. Existing research supports the use of macrostructure icons, participants telling entire narratives and clinician modelling within intervention. In the remaining four papers intervention studies are described that address the development of oral narrative macrostructure. In the first intervention study, a multiple baseline with probe design was used to examine the effects of intervention on the personal narratives of four children with ASD and severe language disorder. The same design was used to examine the effects of intervention on the fictional narrative retells on four children with ASD and severe language disorder. The third intervention study was a pilot AB study with one participant with ASD and language disorder that examined an original fictional narrative intervention. Following on from this pilot study, a multiple baseline with probe design was employed in the final intervention study to examine an original fictional narrative intervention with four children with ASD and language disorder. All studies included maintenance and generalisation probes. Overall, the narrative interventions appeared to be effective in improving the macrostructure for most participants, but individual responses were variable and modifications to the intervention procedures were necessary for some participants. There was evidence of maintenance for most participants and some evidence of generalisation to other people and settings.This thesis adds to the limited research into narrative intervention with children with ASD and significant language disorder. The studies presented provide evidence that intervention can be effective across a range of narrative types but individual responses to intervention may be idiosyncratic and some children may require individualised adjustments. The thesis also provides the first study of narrative retell intervention with this population.