No abstract

The use of AAC (Argumentative Alternative Communication) is somewhat universal for children in autism spectrum for the daily use at school and home in United States. In United States, there are many applications of AAC with different systematic approaches, while representing AAC language has been studied to find out the effectiveness of different visual language of AAC in early intervention with children with communication needs. Recently, study of Worah, McNaughton, Light & Benedek-Wood (2015) shows that “most current symbol sets have been found to be difficult for very young children to learn and use” (Light & Drager, 2002, 2007), because children use vocabularies strongly with their personal understanding of a concept and will differ from that of an adult (Light, Drager, Curran, Hayes, Kristiansen, Lewis, et al., 2005; Light & Drager, 2007). In response to such findings about current AAC visual language system in general, MOGUL AAC has been developed with careful consideration of personal choice for language selection for development. MOGUL AAC has its unique approach: the hyper-customization system, which allows children to have their own personal visual language system for their communicational needs.

This study was conducted on a 6-year-old girl with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Korea. The case was initiated in February 2015, and intensive treatment was provided for one year. Then, the case was monitored over the course of 6 years until December 2021. The intervention plan was an art therapy-based treatment plan (Individual Therapeutic Education Plan: ITEP) with two integral foci: (1) creative arts-based parent counseling and education and (2) didactic art therapy with the child. This was a new type of integral approach that was not a standard of care practice in Korea, acknowledging the importance of including parents in therapy and the notion of creative arts therapy. There was no scientific evidence supporting this qualitive approach; however, the intervention was a notable success, sustaining a positive outcome—the intervention (1) reduced the anxiety levels of both the mother and the child in the short term; (2) enhanced the child–parent relationship as well as the home environment of the child while the art therapy-based counseling and education increased the mother’s competence; and (3) enhanced the communicative and adaptive functioning of the child and the mother, with art becoming the supportive breakthrough for their emotional obstacles. The findings suggest that a parent-focused creative approach impacts parental changes and child development: the evidence indicates that parent-driven interventions are a viable option for parents and children with ASD to build a better home environment that supports the child’s development.