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| Developing Fluent Language Skills for Children with Autism Part III: Pragmatic Language Skills |
| Saturday, May 27, 2006 |
| 8:00 AM–11:00 AM |
| Courtland |
| Area: AUT; Domain: Applied Research |
| CE Instructor: Alison L. Moors, M.A. |
| ALISON L. MOORS (Fabrizio/Moors Consulting), KRISTIN N. SCHIRMER (Fabrizio/Moors Consulting), SARA J. PAHL (Fabrizio/Moors Consulting) |
| Description: This workshop will focus on using the techniques of fluency-based instruction to teach pragmatic language skills to children with autism. Once children have gained facility with basic, intermediate, and advanced language skills, such as asking and answering informational questions, they still have much to learn to acquire verbal repertoires of sufficient extensity to allow them to maximally benefit from classroom instruction and social interactions with others. We will focus on pragmatic language skills as they relate to attending and responding to vocal and non-vocal cues of others, following conversational rules, predicting social cause and effect, usage of idiomatic/metaphorical language, and increasing overall flexibility and scope of language. We will present skill descriptions, scope and sequence charts showing component/composite relationships between skills, suggested skill frequency aims, descriptions of the critical and variable attributes relevant to the instructional stimuli used for each skill, and methods for empirically validating critical instructional outcomes such as skill retention, endurance, stability, and application. Throughout the workshop, we will use actual student performance data and videotaped examples to illustrate each of the key skills discussed. |
| Learning Objectives: � List and describe important pragmatic language skills across multiple verbal behavior repertoires. � Describe the relationship between those skills and other curriculum areas such as reading comprehension and social language development. � Generate teaching examples that account for all skill critical and variable stimulus features � Generate sample scope and sequence teaching outlines for various skills across multiple verbal behavior repertoires |
| Activities: Throughout the workshop, participants will discuss the material with the presenters, practice developing scope and sequence teaching outlines, practice generating teaching examples of their own, and develop plans for teaching verbal responses within a fluency-based instruction arrangement. |
| Audience: Anyone interested in teaching advanced/pragmatic language skills for children with autism, and/or whose students have difficulty with appropriate social use of language. It will be particularly helpful for persons designing or supervising language intervention programs for children with autism in home or school settings. Please note: a basic understanding of fluency-based instructional practices is recommended. |
| Content Area: Practice |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |