Effects of a Pragmatic Teaching Strategy for Requesting Information by Communication Board Users

¹ Bloomsburg University, Bloomsburg, PA
² University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

The effects of a pragmatic teaching strategy on 4 nonspeaking children's abilities to initiate requests for information (i.e., who, what, and where) using manual communication boards were investigated. A teaching strategy based on milieu teaching and time-delay procedures was developed and embedded in naturally structured communication tasks to evoke information requests. Results indicated that information requests using the communication board occurred only after the pragmatic teaching strategy was applied sequentially to the three request types during the experimental condition. This effect was demonstrated repeatedly across the 4 subjects. Although generalization across request types was not demonstrated, substantial generalization was found across partners and environments. A social validation measure confirmed the treatment effectiveness. Independent raters perceived significant differences when viewing before- and after-training videotapes on 7 of 10 communication variables for all subjects.

Key Words: nonspeech communication systems • intervention • language disorders in mental retardation

Submitted on February 27, 1989
Accepted on June 20, 1989

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