Snack Talk: Effects of a Naturalistic Visual Communication Support on Increasing Conversation Engagement for Adults with Disabilities

Keeping Teachers Engaged during Non-Instructional Times: An Analysis of the Effects of a Naturalistic Intervention

“…The primary purpose of this study was to determine if the implementation of Snack Talk intervention procedures increased engagement and interactions among children and teachers during a non-instructional time. This study builds on extensive evidence from previous studies [7,25] that demonstrates that the Snack Talk intervention protocol promotes social interactions, specifically among teachers and children in this application. Further, the current study extends findings in previous Snack Talk studies [7,25], demonstrating that the intervention also increased teacher engagement with children, emphasizing the effectiveness and applicability of this intervention to teacher and staff engagement during non-academic times.…”

“…This study builds on extensive evidence from previous studies [7,25] that demonstrates that the Snack Talk intervention protocol promotes social interactions, specifically among teachers and children in this application. Further, the current study extends findings in previous Snack Talk studies [7,25], demonstrating that the intervention also increased teacher engagement with children, emphasizing the effectiveness and applicability of this intervention to teacher and staff engagement during non-academic times. Results demonstrated differences in teacher engagement when the Snack Talk procedure was in place and when it was not.…”

“…During intervention implementation phases, staff implemented Snack Talk [7,25,41,42], a visual-based naturalistic intervention designed to promote social communication within the natural conversational routine of mealtimes. Snack Talk cards were created by the research team with input from implementing staff at the preschool.…”

“…When targeting social communication and language outcomes, naturalistic interventions often involve environmental arrangements designed to foster engagement of learners as language partners [7,25] while adults evoke, model, and reinforce novel language usage within functional contexts [26] to support a social feedback loop. Support of a social feedback loop has been theorized to be especially critical for children with ASD who already experience language and communication difficulties [27,28].…”

“…One example of a naturalistic intervention that is embedded in mealtime is Snack Talk [7,25,41,42]. In this intervention, a visual support intervention package (i.e., modeling, prompting, and reinforcement) is used during the natural routine of mealtime to prompt social exchanges and conversation among children.…”