The social communication deficit caused by ASD affects the whole life as it progresses in a form different from typical development from the beginning, suggesting that development-oriented interventions are significant. Therefore, this study aimed to ...
The social communication deficit caused by ASD affects the whole life as it progresses in a form different from typical development from the beginning, suggesting that development-oriented interventions are significant. Therefore, this study aimed to develop the SCC flowchart, a comprehensive development program to improve the social communication skills of children with ASD.
By extracting sub-elements based on the results of review and investigation of the literature and composing a draft on the item and difficulty level of the task, and the development principle and implementation guidelines through preliminary research, an SCC flowchart consisting of 323 sub-developmental tasks was developed.
SCC flow chart consists of 184 communitarian tasks, which are key skills for achieving social development in ASD, 71 intentional communication behavior tasks to develop the requesting level of intentional communication, which is the highest output rate in ASD, and 68 tasks with objective/subjective statements as social initiating behaviors mentioned as essential factors for spontaneous utterance increase and pragmatic change after 20 months, which are vital areas for improving social communications in ASD. In addition, to enable systematic evaluation and intervention at the same time whether these key areas are typically being developed according to these development stages, this study tries to verify the effectiveness of the SCC flowchart that presented the course in the curriculum.
PRES integrated language age two years or older, fifteen children with ASD who can combine two or more words, and parents were examined to determine whether the effectiveness of the SCC flowchart could be predicted. The findings are as follows;
First, language competency was significantly improved in REVT acceptance and expression language and PRES acceptance and expression language after the SCC flowchart intervention.
Second, the non-verbal ability improved significantly on the intentional non-verbal communication behavior checklist scale after the SCC flowchart intervention.
Third, the pragmatic knowledge was significantly improved in the ratio of NDW, NTW, and CIU after the SCC flowchart intervention.
Fourth, there was a significant effect on the parenting stress index after the SCC flowchart intervention.
Fifth, the SCC flowchart program showed the highest correlation coefficient with the PRES expression language, so there were many common factors between the two variables, and the covariate relationship was high in the correlation analysis conducted to explore the degree of correlation between variables after the SCC flowchart intervention. However, there was no statistically significant correlation in the intentional non-verbal communication checklist.
The SCC flowchart developed in this study can provide a curriculum for each child with ASD so that it can be accessed as an individualized educational plan (IEP). In addition, the current social communication skill level of ASD children was evaluated, and a curriculum was presented accordingly. Based on these findings, assessment tools and comprehensive intervention programs related to the core deficits of children with ASD need to be further developed and expanded.
Key words: SCC flowchart, developmental program, curriculum program, interaction, initiating behavior, intentional communication, joint attention, social communication skill, Autism Spectrum Disorder Social Communication Skills.