USAGE OF SYMBOLIC IMAGES FOR DIAGNOCTICS OF COMMUNICATION SKILLS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM AND SEVERE SPEECH DISORDERS

Proud to present at Autism Europe Congress 2022 being a co-author of the research of creation of symbolic images for communication assessment and speech developments in children with autism and severe speech disorders.

It was a formative experiment that involved 40 preschool children’s guided by 11 Speech Language Pathologists.

All children did not use or barely used verbal speech for communication and had significant difficulties in interaction with environment.

There were 2 groups, an experimental one to be given cards for communication and SLP lessons, and a control one, with lessons only, without cards.

Research plan included a observation in a natural educative environment at lessons (hidden camera allowed by parents).

Researches fixated behavioral reactions: emotional signs, concentration, verbalizations, gestures for communication, impressive part of the speech (understanding). Verbalizations were fixated in 7 of 13 children observed (33% of the experiment group). Also we received and assessed results to observe a shift in communication due to diagnostics before and after giving cards

Unfortunately, war did not allow some SLPs to finish the observation.

We hope that future research would explore cards effectiveness in longitude perspective. And would focus

Ukrainian Symbols were provided by DyvoGra Social Enterprise that I`m leading. And the project was supported by House of Europe.