Children with developmental disabilities (DD) may experience delays in their ability to speak and communicate with their parents, peers, and others. These children often benefit from evidence-based, parent-implemented communication interventions. In the current study, two mothers were trained and coached to use storybook reading techniques and evidence-based naturalistic communication teaching strategies (i.e., modeling, mand-model, and time delay) while reading books with their children with DD. Using a multiple-baseline design across naturalistic teaching strategies, the following three components were examined: (a) mothers’ use of book reading techniques, (b) mothers’ rate and fidelity in using the three naturalistic teaching strategies, and (c) children’s communication outcomes. After training and coaching, the mothers used the modeling, mand-model, and time delay strategies with higher rates and higher fidelity. The children initiated more communicative acts upon their mothers’ use of time delay. The mothers reported that the training and coaching helped them implement the strategies and led to improvements in their children’s communication skills.
Ms. Glass is working with her kindergarten student, Angela, on expressive communication. Angela has significant communication delays and has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Although she is making progress, Ms. Glass is worried that her gains will not generalize to different contexts. Ms. Glass thinks Angela and some of her peers will benefit from working on expressive communication at home in everyday routines. However, teaching Angela's parents to use communication teaching strategies is difficult, as Ms. Glass and Angela's parents have overlapping work schedules. Ms. Glass wonders if there is another way to provide Angela's parents with targeted support so they can, in turn, support Angela's communication at home.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.