Communicative Intent of Spoken Discourse by Using Social Stories among Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Suraya Amirrudin

doi:10.6007/ijarbss/v11-i3/8582

Abstract

It is prevailing that ASD children often seem to have difficulty with social, cognitive and language processes. In this study, the communicative intent of the spoken discourse is examined by using social stories through the identification of the elements of discourse in utterances among ASD children. The current study uses qualitative data to provide details to the research objective, and a case study method design is utilised for the collection and analysis of the data. There are 13 ASD children selected as the sample for the study with four female and nine male children. As for the instruments, the study utilises social stories and semi-structured interview questions. There are three different social stories (Visiting atuk and nenek in Kampung, Being Kind to Animals and Helping My Family) narrated to the respondents. Nevertheless, to explain more about this phenomenon, the current research employs a theory; Discourse Analysis Theory (Normaliza Abd Rahim, 2019). The findings of the study reveal that the 13 respondents display seven communicative intent signals and their spoken utterances subscribe to the three elements (content, context and assumption) mentioned in the discourse theory. The aspects, in theory, have helped the ASD respondents to be able to understand the content and context of the social stories. There is no magic formula for teaching special educational needs students, especially autism.

Highlights

Special needs children, especially the developmental delays and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are not “programmed” to respond to other individuals in their environment, (Jerry, 2020) and so they lack communicative intent
Unlike the ASD children, the deficient of Theory of Mind (ToM) or the ability to understand that other people have thoughts that are separate from their own resulted in them believe that other people are thinking of what they are thinking
There were seven communicative intent signals identified in the ASD respondents

Summary

Introduction

Especially the developmental delays and ASD are not “programmed” to respond to other individuals in their environment, (Jerry, 2020) and so they lack communicative intent. Wadge et al, (2019) corresponded to Stolk et al, (2016) when three years ago they observed the communicative deficits in ASD children and they suggested for human communication “as a solution to a conceptual alignment challenge, organised to predict and monitor mutual understanding” As it can be seen here, more future research is needed to discover options such as embedding social communication interventions into the curriculum. The research objective for the current study was to examine the communicative intent of spoken discourse by using social stories among autism spectrum disorder (ASD) children. Displaying satisfaction when goal is Questionning attained These questions may be intentional communication (e.g., self-generated or consist of echolalia) protesting) used to affect others' behaviour). Prizant & Wetherby (1986) examined the issue of communicative intent with reference to how it may contribute to a greater understanding of the social impairment in autism, and they felt that the acquisition of intentional communication involves synergistic development in social, communicative, and cognitive domains

Emotion

Results and Discussion

Conclusion