Teacher responses to the communicative attempts of children with autism

Abstract

We assessed teacher responses to the communicative attempts of children with autism. Teachers were first interviewed using the Inventory of Potential Communicative Acts (IPCA) to identify behaviors in each childs repertoire that the teachers considered to be communicative. Interview results suggested that the teachers interpreted many of the childrens prelinguistic gestures, body movements, and facial expressions, as forms of communication. Naturalistic observations were then conducted in the childs classroom to determine how teachers responded to the childrens identified forms of prelinguistic behaviors. The results of these naturalistic observations suggested that the teachers often did not respond to the childs prelinguistic behaviors in ways that acknowledged their communicative intent. Implications of the results on the childs communication development and for intervention efforts are discussed.