The communication skills of adolescents with autism across different contexts

Abstract

The purpose of this current research was to investigate the communication skills of four adolescents with autism across three different contexts—home, Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) and Physical Education (PE) lessons. The social skills, pragmatic skills, conversation skills, and receptive and expressive skills are what make the communication skills. Individuals with autism illustrate persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction, whilst their patterns of behaviour, interests, or activities are restricted and repetitive (Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2013). Participants included four parents of adolescents with autism whom attend DMT and PE lessons, their dance therapist, and their PE teacher. A questionnaire was self-developed by the researcher for all the participants. Quantitative data obtained from the questionnaires was used to compare mean rating scores between the parents, dance therapist and PE teacher. Qualitative data was obtained through four online focus groups with the same participants. Questionnaire findings showed that the communication skills of adolescents with autism do vary across different contexts in some questions. Moreover, minimal difference was found between the communication skills in structured and unstructured situations. In addition, it emerged that rhythmic physical activity (PA) does enhance the communication skills of adolescents with autism. From the qualitative data, five themes were derived: communication skills are the same in all contexts; DMT is beneficial; rhythmic PA is beneficial; receptive skills are different in each context; and conversation skills vary according to each adolescent. This research conveys that rhythmic PA enhances the communication skills of adolescents with autism.