بررسی ساختارهای خرد و کلان در داستان‌های دارای طرحوارۀ فعال و بدون طرحوارۀ فعال در کودکان فارسی‌زبان با اختلالِ طیفِ اُتیسم

تولید داستان‌های منسجم و پیوسته برای کودکان با اختلال طیف اُتیسم موضوعی پرچالش است. با این ‌وجود، تفاوت‌های بین داستان‌های روایت‌شده توسط کودکان با و بدون اختلالِ طیفِ اُتیسم ممکن است با کاهش نیازهای شناختی و زبانی کاهش پیدا کند. از این ‌رو، پژوهش حاضر بر آن است تا مشخص کند که آیا استفاده از طرحوارۀ فعال که داستان را حول رویدادهای مشترکی سازماندهی می‌کند، می‌تواند منجر به کاهش مشکلات کودکان در روایت داستان ‌شود یا خیر. در راستای دستیابی به این هدف، توانایی 19 کودک با اختلال طیف اُتیسم و 26 کودک سالم در بازگویی دو داستان که یکی از آن‌ها دارای طرحوارۀ فعال (طرحوارۀ فعال سینما رفتن) و دیگری بدون طرحوارۀ فعال بود، ارزیابی شد. داستان‌ها از نظر ساختارهای ریز و کلان و نوع رویدادهای دارای طرحوارۀ فعال و بدون طرحوارۀ فعال رمزگذاری شدند. یافته‌های پژوهش نشان داد که عملکرد کودکان با اختلالِ طیفِ اُتیسم در مقایسه با کودکان سالم به‌طور معنی‌داری هم در داستان دارای طرحوارۀ فعال و هم در داستان بدون طرحوارۀ فعال برحسب تولید ساختارهای ریز و ‌ساختارهای کلان ضعیف‌تر بود. به‌طورکلی، داستان‌های روایت‌شده توسط کودکان با اختلالِ طیفِ اُتیسم در مقایسه با کودکان سالم انسجام و پیوستگی کمتری داشتند. مقیاس کامل ضریب هوشی تعیین‌کنندۀ انسجام و پیوستگی داستان در کودکان با اختلالِ طیفِ اُتیسم بود. علاوه‌بر این، بررسی داستان‌ دارای طرحوارۀ فعال نشان داد که میزان استفاده از جزئیات مربوط به طرحوارۀ فعال توسط کودکان با اختلالِ طیفِ اُتیسم مانند کودکان سالم بود. با این ‌وجود، میزان استفاده از جزئیات بدون طرحوارۀ فعال در کودکان با اختلالِ طیفِ اُتیسم در مقایسه با کودکان سالم کمتر بود. نتایج پژوهش نشان می‌دهد آسیب در روایت داستان ممکن است در انواع داستان‌ها وجود داشته باشد.

micro- and macro-structures in the retold narratives with script and non-script: the case of persian-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder (asd)

producing cohesive and coherent stories by children with autism spectrum disorder (asd) is a challenging issue. however, the differences between the stories retold by children with and without asd may decrease by reducing cognitive and linguistic needs. the present study intended to determine whether the use of scripts that organize stories around shared events can lead to a decrease in children’s problems of narrative retelling. to achieve this goal, the abilities of 19 children with asd and 26 healthy children in retelling two stories with and without a script were evaluated. the stories were coded in terms of micro- and macro-structures and types of events with and without a script. the findings showed that the performance of the asd children compared to the healthy ones was significantly weaker in retelling the stories with and without the script in terms of micro- and macro-structures. in general, the stories retold by the children with asd compared to the healthy children were less cohesive and coherent. the full-scale iq determined cohesion and coherence of the story retold by the asd children. in addition, the study of the story with the script showed that the amount of details related to the script performed by children with asd was comparable to that of the healthy children. however, the use of details without the script by the asd children compared to the healthy ones was higher. the results of the research revealed that impairment in story narration might be present across narrative types.keywords: autism spectrum disorder (asd), monolingual children, story retelling, script introductionautism spectrum disorder (asd) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impairments in the areas of social communication and restrictive or repetitive behaviors (american psychiatric association, 2013). as narrative production is an essential component of social communication, it is not surprising that the past research has found that children with asd are at particular risk for difficulties with narrative discourse (stirling, douglas, leekham, & carey, 2014). however, in contrast to our extensive knowledge regarding narrative development in neurotypical (nt) children, narrative production in asd children has remained a relatively understudied area of research, especially as it relates to the extent that these impairments are pervasive across narrative measures or genres and the mechanisms contributing to these problems. thus, the current study was designed to gain a more comprehensive understanding of narrative development in children with asd by examining whether providing more structures in the form of a script framework within a narrative task could facilitate well-formed narratives to be retold by asd children. materials and methodsthe statistical population of this research included asd children and healthy children aged 6-12 from tehran. in general, from among both groups of children (with asd and normal linguistic growth), 54 children participated in this study. the asd sample included 19 children from speech therapy clinics of tehran, who were selected based on some predefined criteria. to select the asd children, first, 20 children with clinical diagnosis of asd were identified; however, one of the children was excluded due to inability of speech. the final sample included 17 male and 2 female subjects. the average age of children with asd was 10 years and 3 months and the mean age of those with normal language development was 9 years and 8 months. the asd children, who had an iq score of higher than 70 and were monolingual, were allowed to participate in the study. the average iq scores of the children with asd and those with normal language development were 93/5 and 102, respectively. therefore, there was a significant difference between these two groups of children in terms of intelligence. the clinical diagnoses of all the children with asd were established via medical evaluation by a pediatrician and/or a licensed clinical psychologist in accordance with the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders-iv (apa, 2000). asd symptom severity was determined by using the childhood autism rating scale, 2nd edition (cars-2) (schopler & van bourgondien, 2010), and the social responsiveness scale, 2nd edition (srs-2) (constantino and gruber, 2012). the children with normal language growth were selected from the public schools of tehran. the final sample consisted of 26 healthy children (18 boys and 8 girls) with a mean age of 9 years and 9 months and an age range of 6/11-12/11. the groups were matched on non-verbal reasoning and receptive vocabulary. two different retelling tasks were administered: the stories of “peter and the cat” (a non-script-based story) and “a day at the movies” (a script-based story). during retelling the stories, the examiner narrated them by showing the pictures of each story. then, he gave the children the picture story books and asked them to retell their stories in the best way. afterwards, 2 trained researchers transcribed all the recordings. the transcription reliabilities between the two coders were 0.87 and 0.88 for the mentioned stories, respectively.