Autism-Open Access
Open Access
ISSN: 2165-7890
ISSN: 2165-7890
Fernanda Dreux M. Fernandes
Universidade de S?£o Paulo, Brazil
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: Autism Open Access
The increase in prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) demands that new strategies for delivering speech-language therapy services to them are tested and improved. Including families and familiar situations may be a way to provide more intensive stimulation to use language with communicative functions. The aim of this study was to identify strategies to stimulate communication development of children with ASD that can be suggested to parents and followed-up systematically. Method: Participants were children with diagnosis within the autism spectrum that attended weekly speech-language therapy at a specialized service of a large university in S?£o Paulo (Brazil) The study was conducted in four phases: Planning of activities: aiming to built a program with individualized planned strategies that could be conducted by each family and were adapted to each child; Four face-to-face meetings with the parents: to suggest and discuss activities that should be conducted at home daily; During six weeks the parents continued to conduct the proposed activities at home, with systematic weekly follow-up by the childâ??s therapist; Individual interviews conducted after the program: the parents reported their impressions about the proposal and the outcomes regarding their childâ??s development during individual interviews Activities involved the main areas of disorders in ASD such as language, social abilities, cognitive flexibility and adaptive behavior, with emphasis in language and communication. It was suggested that the parents used familiar situations as opportunities for games and plays involving language, cognitive and social demands. Parents reported difficulties in implementing the proposed routine of playing with their child for at least a few minutes every day. They mentioned, â??lack of timeâ? and â??being tiredâ? as the main reasons for it. Nevertheless they all reported that they were more able to understand their childâ??s needs and demands and that their child responded well to the suggestions
Email: fernandadreux@usp.br