Theses and Dissertations from UMD

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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2017 - 20203

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    USE OF MULTIMODAL COMMUNICATION IN PLAY INTERACTIONS WITH CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
    (2020) Rain, Avery; Bernstein Ratner, Nan; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    In typical adult-child interaction, adults tend to coordinate gesture and other nonverbal modes of communication with their verbalizations (multimodal communication). This study explored the effectiveness of multimodal communication with young children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to encourage child responses. The maternal use of verbal, nonverbal, and multimodal initiations and the subsequent response or lack of response of their child was examined in fifty mother/child video-recorded play interactions. Results indicated that mothers initiated multimodally at similar rates with children with lower and higher expressive language levels. Child response rates to multimodal communication initiations were higher than response rates to verbal-only or nonverbal-only initiations; this finding was consistent across low and high expressive language groups. Additionally, a significant positive correlation was found between maternal wait time after initiation and overall child response rate. These findings have important ramifications for clinical practice and parent training.
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    INVESTIGATING THE EFFECT OF PARENTAL QUESTION INPUT ON CHILDREN WITH ASD
    (2019) Curdts, Lydia Leslie; Bernstein-Ratner, Nan; Hearing and Speech Sciences; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The current study analyzed individual mechanisms of language gains following the Solomon et al. (2014) randomized control trial (RCT) of the Play and Language for Autistic Youngsters (PLAY) Project, a DIR/Floortime based early intervention program for children with autism spectrum disorder. 80 parent-child play interactions from the original RCT were analyzed to assess the relationship between various forms of parental question input, as taught in PLAY parent trainings, and child language measures. While high parental question input did correlate with high child language measures, one targeted intervention component, parental Asked/Answered question input, did not increase following parent training and did not improve child language measures. We consider other mechanisms responsible for successful child language gains following PLAY intervention.
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    THE EFFECTS OF INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD INSTRUCTION ON EARLY NUMERACY SKILLS OF STUDENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS
    (2017) Maajeeny, Fayez; Kohl, Frances L; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of interactive whiteboard instruction on early numeracy skills of students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Four students diagnosed with ASD between the ages of five to seven years old participated. They were taught early numeracy skills, specifically one-to-one correspondence and representation of numbers, using an interactive whiteboard (IAW) and discrete trial training (DTT). A multiple probe design across subjects was used to determine the effectiveness of the IAW instruction. It was predicted that students with ASD would acquire, maintain, and generalize the early numeracy skills taught using the IAW. Results revealed the IAW with DTT was effective for teaching early numeracy skills to students with ASD. The introduction of the intervention resulted in all participants meeting the established criteria. All students generalized the target early numeracy skills to a different setting and with different materials and the results were maintained over time. The findings of the study support the effectiveness of the IAW, coupled with DTT, to teach early numeracy skills to students with ASD. This study met the evidence standards for single case design addressed by What Works Clearinghouse. Implications for practice include the consideration of using the IAW to teach a variety of academic skills as well as developing interactive lessons based on each student’s needs. Future research should focus on generalization of skills gained using IAW instruction.