Development of Social Communication Skills in Children With Multiple Disabilities in Nonthaphum Home: Experiences from a One-Year Therapeutic Outreach Program
Keywords:
Communication skill, Circle of communication, Multiple disabilities, Speech therapyAbstract
Background and Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate the development of social communication skills in 37 children with multiple disabilities. These children are residents of Pakkret Home (Nonthaphum Home) the provided services for individuals with various disabilities. They were identified as having speech and language disorders through the provision of a one-year therapeutic outreach program.
Method: Participants were 37 children residents of Pakkret Home who ranged in age from 7 to 19 years. The clinicians employed a naturalistic approach emphasizing on the non-structured protocol and interaction adjusted to the children’s interests for one year. A pre- and post- intervention was evaluated by counting the number of communication circles.
Results: Participants demonstrated a significant increase in the use of communication circles following intervention (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: All participants showed significant improvement in the communication ability as identified by the pre- and post-intervention evaluation of the numbers of communication circles. Their social and emotional developments were also improved.
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Copyright (c) 2016 By the authors. Licensee RMJ, Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University, Bangkok, Thailand
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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