The Role of Fingerspelled Self-Cues during Spelling with a Speech Generating Device by a Child with Autism: A Brief Report

Abstract

This brief report represents a post-hoc analysis on the use of fingerspelling as a self-cue by a child with autism who was previously taught to spell with a speech generating device under three feedback conditions: auditory (speech output), visual (Liquid Crystal Display), and auditory-visual (Schlosser et al., Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 28:309–319, 1998). During instruction for this study, the child was provided with fingerspelled input across conditions. In coding the videotaped sessions for correct spelling performance, it was noted that this child seemed to use fingerspelling as self-cues as he was entering a letter into the keyboard. The purpose of this post-hoc analysis was to determine whether he used these fingerspelled self-cues more in certain feedback conditions than others. Results revealed that although the child produced fingerspelled self-cues across conditions, he used them most frequently in the auditory condition and least often in the visual condition. It is hypothesized that this child may have self-generated a visual mnemonic as needed (as a function of the condition) in order to facilitate memory retrieval of letters during spelling.