Do social interactions between children and parental involvement help foster language development in six-year-old autistic children? I feel that this topic is very important because autism now affects one in 88 children, autism is the fastest growing serious developmental disability in the U.S, boys are five times more likely to get it than girls, and only 58% of students with autism finish high school. Not just that but there is still no information found on what are the causes of autism (Autism Speaks, 2013). I will use research that demonstrates that parental involvement and social interactions does help foster language development in six-year old autistic children.
Theoretical Framework
The research intervention was developed and based on the theoretical ideas of Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky theory states the importance of social interactions and assistance from an experienced adult, while the child is learning. (Driscoll, 2005). The research question was created with the idea that parental involvement and social interactions will have a positively affect in a students language development.
Literature Review
The review explores the relationship between parental involvement and social interactions and how those two things help increase the language development of a six year old autistic child. The articles used provide supporting information that demonstrates that parental involvement as well as social interactions is needed. The articles also demonstrate how it is very important to have both parents involved and not just one parent.
Theoretical Perspective
The theory that will be used for my projects is Vygotskys theory. According to Vygosky cognitive development develops over the life span and is influenced by social and cult...
... middle of paper ...
...to be an increase in scores in the post-test with parental involvement and that is what the scores indicated when compared.
Discussion/Conclusion
As you can see, children with autism display marked deficits in initiating and maintaining social interactions. Intervention using play routines that involve parental involvement can create a framework for developing and maintaining social interactions between children and their communication partner. From the studies and my intervention mentioned above, you can see that autistic children whose parents are more involved in their lives do way better than children whose parents are not children. A weakness of the action research was that I used a total of six students; maybe with a larger number the results would of changed. A strength was that I was able get six parents that were able to participate in the intervention.
Incidental teaching focuses on child-initiated interactions. (Hall, 2013) Incidental teaching is used to increase skills of individuals with autism spectrum disorders. (Hall, 2013) A study done by Hart and Risley (1975) looked at the incidental teaching process used at the preschool age to aide in teaching language. Incidental teaching has been the most frequent strategy that has been used to teach language. When using incidental teaching a child’s request may be verbal or nonverbal. Examples include reaching for an object that is out of one’s reach, requesting food or a toy or calling an adult’s name. There is a series of decisions that an adult can use to respond to the child’s request. These choices include: if the occasion should be used for incidental teaching: if so then a choice regarding the language behavior that is obtained from the child, and then a choice has to be made concerning the cue that will be used to initiate instruction, the cur could be focus of attention by itself, or in addition to the focused attention a verbal cue as well. If the individual does not respond to the cue, then a choice concerning the degree of prompt to be used, the “fullest degree: a request for imitation; medium degree: a request for partial imitation, or minimal degree: a request for the terminal language behavior.” (Hart & Risley, 1975) This study was performed on boys and girls between the ages of four years old to five years old. The baseline procedures ensured that the children had a variety of vocabulary for use in sentences. The sentences that they were taught was “I want x so I can y.” The second step of the procedure was the use of incidental teaching of compound sentences directed to teachers. After thirty-six days of school, the incidental teaching began to occur when the children needed assistance in trying to get different preschool materials.
... can be difficult for a child with autism to initiate conversation on her own, by following your child’s lead and responding to what she does, you are encouraging further interaction. You can also help by encouraging friendships between your child with ASD and other children”
Development of social skills is very important for children that are diagnosed with autism because of ...
Adamson, L., Bakerman, R., Deckner, D. & Romskey, M.(2008). Joint Engagement and the Emergence of Language in Children with Autism and Down Syndrome.
Luiselli, James K. "Verbal Language and Communication." Teaching and Behavior Support for Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Practitioner's Guide. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.
Since Autism doesn’t present the same in each person, everyones needs are unique. Where some will excel others may drag behind, it 's important to figure out what areas need to be focused on more so than others early on so you can target them with structured programs and activities. Most people with Autism have underlying medical conditions as well as behavioral conditions so being on the correct medication and monitoring that is very important. Often times it 's recommended for children with Autism to go to therapy sessions for speech, social interaction skills, and general development. It 's extremely important to focus on social skills since that 's one of the main components of Autism is a lack or strain on social skills. Enrolling your children in specialized structured activities to help them work on their social skills is important for their
For Vygotsky, children are seen as active beings on their development through social interactions with parents, teachers, and other adults, as well as by participating in their cultural activities. The interactions they have with other individuals and their culture opens their minds to new information and helps develop skills not previously attained. To further understand cognitive development in Piaget and Vygotsky’s theory, we must first look at the processes involved.
Whenever the benefits of inclusion are brought up the first component that comes to mind is: social interaction. The benefits of social interaction is the most important component for including children with autism in an inclusion, general education setting (Lynch & Irvine, 2009). The reason this benefit is so high within a general education setting is that interactions occur at a greater frequency. Typical peers that meet cor...
One of the most difficult things teachers will face when dealing with Autistic children is their lack of communication skills and inappropriate or nonexistent social skills. In addition to academic instruction children with Autism require instruction in communication techniques and social skills. Kamps et.al. says “A key to accommodating students with autism in public school settings is the provision of social and behavioral programming to develop meaningful participation with nondisabled persons” (p.174).
The similarities in the theories, including the development perspective and dialectical approach, are very complex and focus upon the fundamentals of each theory. The differences in each theory make them very unique, including the autonomous and heteronomous approaches for each respective theory. The four cognitive stages of Piaget’s theory, including sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations, provide a clear, effective progression of an individual’s development path from infancy to adulthood. This is very unique to Piaget’s theory and is utilized immensely in academic studies of psychology. The fundamental aspects of Vygotsky’s theory, including cultural and historical factors contributing to the individual’s development is also very unique and is regularly utilized in academic studies. Without the research that each theorist conducted and presented, the psychology studies that we know today would not be the same. The work of both respective theorists will continue to be utilized in academia and in psychology for many years to
This essay is about a child’s development and learning, focusing primarily on language development. It will describe the main stages of developmental "milestones" and the key concepts involved for children to develop their language skills, discussing language acquisition and social learning theory. The essay will also look into the key theorists involved in language development, primarily Vygotsky and Chomsky, and how these theories have had an impact on the way society views language and their implementation within schools. The essay will describe the factors affecting language development, both biological and environmental. While also discussing key arguments among theorists, one being the nature vs nurture debate, and how these play a part in the teaching in schools.
Some factors that influence young children’s cognitive development are the environmental community in which they are engaged in. According to Vygotsky, he believed children’s thinking is affected by their knowledge of the social community. Engaging students in social groups is another factor that influence’s a child’s cognitive development, and it shows value of learning skills . According to the text, Vygotsky stated “that in order to measure a child’s intellectual skills and their changes through the course of learning and development, he believed that experiments should be conducted” (Driscoll, 2005).
n the world of Vygotsky, a child was not a product of the environment, instead the child interacts with the environment by making choices, which moderates or influences the effect of the environment on the child. Lev Vygotsky stages of development were not defined by age or biology, the basis behind his theory was unerstanding social and cultural experiences of a child, and how they affect the the child's development. A philosophy of Vygotsky’s theory was the zone of proximal development (ZPD), this is the difference between what a child is able to solve on its own based on the stage of cognitive development, and what a child can learn with the help or experience of another person. Vygotsky believes the skill of knowledge comes from mastering new social situations where learning is shared with others. He also believed that experiences should be shared in social settings, and placed a large emphasis on the quality of group work within the cognitive development process. Within group work, children's language is encouraged to develop, through conversation, questioning and sharing cognitive content with their peers. Vygotsky believed that "social interaction enables the child to develop the intellectual skills needed for logical reasoning and thought." (Grossman, S. 2008) Through language and communication, children learn to evaluate the world and change their actions accordingly.
Vygotsky believed that learning and cognitive development were significantly influenced by social interactions that occur with in a particular sociocultural environment. There are four major influences on cognitive development.
1. Children who are autistic have difficulty engaging in day to day interactions. When they are older, they have difficulty sharing and playing games with other children. They also prefer to play alone. (“Symptoms”, 2014)