Communicative possibilities of written conversations with adolescents who have autism

Abstract

Oral and written conversations were held with three adolescents with autism in 15-20-minute sessions over a 15-week period. The discourse of several oral and written sessions was transcribed, and coded for mean length of utterance, communicative functions, turn-taking, and topic matching. These features were compared within and across participants for modality effects. Results showed a range of individual discourse styles, with two participants showing more elaborate language and two participants relying less on partners to carry the conversation in the written modality. One of the three participants also took significantly more non-obligatory turns and never passed an obligatory turn in writing but did orally. This individual also matched his partner's topic significantly more often in written than in oral conversations. If written capabilities exceed oral performance, written communication might provide supplemental or alternative methods to teach students with autism in the classroom or to enhance social communication across settings.