QUESTIONNAIRE FOR FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS OF STUDENTS WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME - PSYCHOMETRIC ASSESSMENT OF THE TOOL

Abstract

Asperger's syndrome in literature is described as one of the most atypical disorders, in an autism spectrum disorder. In the characteristics of children / people with Asperger's syndrome, the communication disorder is highlighted, which results in getting lost in social reality. This confusion has two dimensions: individual (the child's confusion in the social space as a result of disturbed and difficult social relations) and social (the loss of a person whose social functioning deviates from the adopted norms and rules through the lack of a support system). Based on the analysis of the literature, it can be concluded that there are not many studies referring to communication skills of people with Asperger syndrome. The reason might be that there are only few tools to assess students communication skills. The purpose of the Questionnaire is to identify students with Asperger's syndrome communication skills. The tool is used to assess the following elements of communication competence: non-verbal competence; verbal competence; symbolic competence; cognitive competence; emotional competence; motivational competence; pragmatic/meta-pragmatist competence; sociolinguistic competence: The questionnaire contains a half-open reactions and behaviors cafeteria. The presented tool makes possible evaluation of reactions and communicational behaviors taking into account the characteristics of appropriateness and non-relevance to the social context. The structure of the questionnaire assumes that the assessment of communicative competence of students with Asperger Syndrome can be made by people who know students (preferably a teacher of early school education, a speech therapist, therapist from activities developing emotional and social competences). Communication competences are assessed by selecting in the questionnaire all reactions and communication behaviors presented by students with Asperger's team in terms of individual competences and determining their frequency (always/sometimes/never) appropriately or inappropriate to the social context. The cafeteria of behaviors includes positive behaviors (e.g., creating eye contact, maintains eye contact, initiating verbal communication, engagement in activity / action by accepting the course of implementation), indicating the appropriateness of communication and negative behaviors (e.g., jerking, beating, screaming, turning on in the activity / activity changing the course of implementation), determining the impropriety in communication competence. The analysis of internal compliance of the tool in the field of: symbolic competence showed high consistency (0.81), cognitive competence (0.76). Non-verbal, emotional, motivational, pragmatic/meta-pragmatist and sociolinguistic competence were researched appropriately or improperly to the social context. The values of coherence coefficients of measurements for separate dimensions calculated using the Cronbach's alpha method were high and were within the range of 0.71-0.89. Absolute stability is determined by conducting two-time studies of the same group of people, the same tool in the time interval, whereby the standard time interval between the first and the second study is not determined (Brzezinski, 2003, p. 468).