Jämförelse av antal kommunikativa initiativ hos små barn med AST före och efter beteendeanalytisk intervention

Sammanfattning: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that limits one’s ability to engage in a mutual, social interaction. Joint attention, imitation and social involvement are social abilities together with other cognitive functions that determine speechdevelopment. These abilities can be less developed in children with ASD compared to typically developing children and therefore children with ASD may have difficulties acquiring various social skills. Applied behaviour analysis (ABA) is a science which can be used to train language skills, for instance, the ability to request (mand) something or to label (tact) something. The purpose of this study was to investigate if the ability to mand and tact increased after intensive training. Three children participated in this study, where the amount of mands and tacts were calculated before training and 7–9 weeks after training had begun. The results confirmed that communicative initiatives increased among all participants. It is not possible to exclude that other factors may have affected the outcome, such as the learning effect of the experimenters or the maturation of the children during the course of this study. The results have not been significantly tested and therefore cannot be generalized to the population. More research is needed within the area.