Communicative skills of children with autistic spectrum disorder: clinical and family perception

ABSTRACT Objective: to describe the communication skills of children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), considering the clinical and family perspective. Methods: from the point of view of parents and therapists, the language of ten children with ASD was analyzed. All children underwent speech therapy at the outpatient clinic of a Speech Therapy School. Two protocols were used for data collection. Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist (ATEC), which was applied to the children's parents, and Protocol for Assessment of Pragmatic Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders - called Pragmatic Protocol (PP), which was answered by therapists. The data were examined through a descriptive statistical analysis, considering absolute and relative frequency, and inferential statistics, through the Chi-square test, with a 5% of significance for all analyses. Results: an expressive presence of communicative deficits, in the answers presented by the therapists, was seen. In the protocol answered by the parents, it was also possible to observe the same trend, since the children failed to score in several items of Subscale I. Conclusion: parents and therapists evidenced changes in the communicative skills of the children surveyed, and emphasized that therapists, who have technical linguistic knowledge, like parents, can also be good informants about their children's communicative development process.

摘要 目的：从临床与家庭双视角出发，描述自闭症谱系障碍（Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD）儿童的沟通能力特征。方法：本研究从家长与治疗师的视角出发，对10名自闭症谱系障碍儿童的语言能力展开分析。所有受试儿童均在某言语治疗学院的门诊机构接受言语治疗。本研究采用两套方案开展数据收集工作：其一为向儿童家长发放的自闭症治疗评估量表（Autism Treatment Evaluation Checklist, ATEC）；其二为治疗师填写的《自闭症谱系障碍儿童语用技能评估方案》（以下简称语用评估方案，Pragmatic Protocol, PP）。数据经描述性统计分析（含绝对频数与相对频数计算）与推断性统计分析处理，所有分析均采用卡方检验（Chi-square test），设定5%的显著性水平。结果：治疗师的作答结果显示，受试儿童普遍存在显著的沟通缺陷；在家长填写的量表中也观察到相同趋势，受试儿童在分量表I的多个条目上未获得得分。结论：家长与治疗师均证实受访儿童的沟通技能存在异常，同时强调，与家长同理，具备专业语言学知识的治疗师亦可作为评估儿童沟通发育进程的可靠信息提供者。