THE ROLE OF STRUCTURED-COMMUNICATION-TECHNIQUE IN DEVELOPING PRAGMATIC LANGUAGE CAPABILITY AMONG ASD-CHILDREN

Abstract

The current study was focused to assess the effect of structured communication intervention (SCI) in improving the pragmatic language abilities of autistic-kids. Pre-test and post-test research design of the true experimental research was employed with purposive sampling technique. The study was carried out at the Garrison Institute of Special Education (GISE). 40 participants were equally divided into experimental and a control groups. The participants grouped in experimental-unit were treated with an intervention of 12 weeks-long structured-communication-strategy while regular classroom activities less-intervention were carried on for the participants grouped in control-unit. Later, a post-test was conducted in order to assess the children' enhanced expertise. The pre-test score of both of the groups showed that they performed equally on the basis of their prevalent baseline competence, the results after the intervention reflected a significant enhancement in pragmatic language performance of the participants grouped in experimental-unit than that of the control group. It is strongly recommended that the employment of structured communication techniques be used by the therapists and teachers according to each child's need and academic milieu. The curriculum-designers are suggested incorporating SCI-based modules for ASD-kids.