Facilitating Commenting and Requesting Skills in 3-Year-Old Children With Disabilities

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The current study evaluated the commenting behaviors and verbal and non-verbal requests of children with disabilities (e.g., developmental delays, specific language impairment) who participated in a shared storybook social communication intervention that included sociodramatic play themes and targeted skills such as initiations, responses, name use, proximity, and turn-taking. Six children who enrolled in a self-contained classroom met the inclusion criteria. A multiple-baseline design was used to determine the effects of the intervention. The social communication intervention was highly effective for all children in increasing the rate of commenting behaviors and for verbal behavior from baseline to intervention. Several implications for practice were derived from the findings. By teaching children social communication strategies, the quality of social interactions that children have with their peers is likely to improve. The intervention offers a more systematic technique for teaching social communication and play skills than do informal strategies commonly used by teachers. Social validity assessments indicated that teachers found the intervention acceptable and produced important changes in behavior.