Effectiveness of Intervention Focused on Pragmatics

Abstract

Introduction: Conversational skills are the most important pragmatic skills. Among conversational skills, conversational repair and clarification request have important roles in preventing communication failures. Social communication disorder (SCD) involves important defects in pragmatic language skills. Children with SCD constantly encounter communication failures due to defect in pragmatic and communication skills. Thus, presenting interventions focused on these skills is important. The aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of intervention focused on conversational repair and clarification request in children with SCD. Materials and Methods: This single subject, multiple probe study was conducted on 3 children with social communication disorder. The subjects were selected from among children of 5 to 7 years of age referring to a speech therapy clinic. The children were assessed 3 sessions before and 3 sessions after therapy. They were taught a variety of conversational repair and clarification request strategies during 12 therapy sessions, each lasting 40 minutes. Data were analyzed based on the visual analysis of charts drawn for each child and using improvement rate difference (IRD). Results: Visual analysis of charts and IRD showed that the children improved in conversational repair and clarification request skills (IRD > 91% and IRD > 83%, respectively). After the intervention, subjects could use different conversational repair and clarification request strategies. Conclusion: The efficacy of the intervention focused on conversational repair and clarification request skills in children with SCD was acceptable.

Keywords

• Pragmatics
• Conversational repair
• Clarification request
• Social communication disorder
• Single subject study design