Browsing by Author "Martio, Lotta"

Aims: Speech and language development is delayed or proceeds atypically with children with intellectual disabilities. Speech expression is limited and a person communicates mainly by early means such as gestures and vocalizations. Interaction is heavily dependent on communication partners. Logopedic interaction studies aim to find out how interaction works when some of the participants have communication problems. Earlier study has brought much information on the communication features of people with aphasia. Communication of people with intellectual disabilities has been studied less. This study provides information on communication features of an adolescent with severe intellectual disability. Methods: The study examined the conversation between Sari and a logopedics student during speech therapy sessions. Conversation analysis (CA) was applied. CA is a qualitative method used to search regularities in naturally occurring conversations. Sari is a 14-year-old girl with Cornelia de Lange Syndrome. She has been diagnosed with severe intellectual disability with autistic features. Her communication is mainly non-verbal. The data consisted of six videotaped speech therapy sessions. The study focused on task phases of the sessions when the participants conducted a speech therapy exercise with four different tasks. For analysis, the videotaped data was transcribed in detail. Sari's communication features and the sequential construction of conversation were described. Things that made interaction fluent or nonfluent were analysed. Results and conclusions: Repetitive structures of interaction were discovered applying CA. Therapy task sequences consisted of three-part structures, where the student first assigned a task, Sari responded and the student commented Sari's response. Negotiation sequence was often built between the first and the second turn. Interaction was fluent when Sari's response to the student's turn was preferred and nonfluent when Sari's response was not preferred. Sari communicated mostly with pointing gestures and bodily activity. Success of Sari's communication was largely determined of how well the student was able to interpret her communication.