UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
Blake, Cocoa
Dept./Program:
Communication Sciences
Year:
2009
Degree:
MS
Abstract:
The purpose of this pilot study was to examine the written language abilities of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and to determine if these written language abilities changed over a period of one to two months following the use of pen-pal exchanges with a typical peer. Ten children, 9 to 12 years of age comprising three dyads of typical peers and two dyads of a typical peer and a child with autism wrote letters biweekly over the course of one to two months for a total of four letters for each child. Children's letters were coded for reference to previous letters, topics initiated and maintained, responses to questions asked, use of comments and questions, letter length, use of pragmatic markers such as exclamation points and question marks, use of mental state terms and percentage of irrelevant or ambiguous statements.
Descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations were used to analyze the results, but interpretation was limited due to the small samples size. Differences were noted between the scores of children with ASD and typically developing peers on one standardized test of written language. Further research with a more robust sample size to yield more meaningful results is needed.
Descriptive statistics including means and standard deviations were used to analyze the results, but interpretation was limited due to the small samples size. Differences were noted between the scores of children with ASD and typically developing peers on one standardized test of written language. Further research with a more robust sample size to yield more meaningful results is needed.