4.2 Article

Changes in the early communicative behaviors of young children with significant cognitive and motor developmental delays in a two-year span

Journal

JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION DISORDERS
Volume 104, Issue -, Pages -

Publisher

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcomdis.2023.106337

Keywords

Early communicative behaviors; Children with significant cognitive and motor; developmental delays; PIMD; Coding scheme; Communication complexity

Ask authors/readers for more resources

This study examines the longitudinal changes in communicative behavior of young children with significant cognitive and motor developmental delays, and determines their individual communicative trajectories. The results show that ten out of sixteen different variables related to communicative behavior changed significantly over a two-year period. Children with more focus on prompt on the first datapoint showed a significantly larger increase of signs of functionality.
Introduction: This study examines longitudinal changes in communicative behavior of young children with significant cognitive and motor developmental delays (SDD) and determines their individual communicative trajectories. A second focus of this study is the relation of changes in communicative behavior with motor skills.Methods: Data consists of codes resulting from a self-developed coding scheme used on obser-vations of 23 children in three different settings and responses on a questionnaire. First, group trends were determined to find out whether communication-related variables tend to significantly change over the course of two years. Furthermore, these findings were contrasted with the in-dividual trajectories of the children. Next, the association of initial communicative skills and (the acquisition of) specific motor skills with the change in their communicative functioning was studied. Wilcoxon Signed Ranks and correlational analyses were used to answer the research questions.Results: Out of sixteen different variables related to communicative behavior, ten changed significantly over the course of two years. Children with more focus on prompt on the first datapoint showed a significantly larger increase of signs of functionality. Still, all children showed highly individual trajectories. Children with better motor skills on the first datapoint showed a significantly larger increase in communication rate.Conclusions: Results show that if a myriad of detailed variables are taken into account children with significant cognitive and motor developmental disabilities do change regarding their communicative functioning, but that they tend to all show unique developmental trajectories. Children with stronger skills in some aspects of communication and motor functioning, can be considered advantaged regarding their communicative development.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.2
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available