Development of Sensory Based Narrative Intervention

Development of Sensory Based Narrative Intervention and the Effect of Treatment on Vocabulary Development in Children - Pilot Study

The goal of this study is to develop a sensory based narrative intervention and see its effect on vocabulary development in children with autism spectrum disorder. Sensory based narrative intervention will be developed, and participants of experimental group will be given this treatment for 6 weeks. Control group participants will be given only narrative intervention. Vocabulary improvement will be documented pre-post testing in both groups.

The present study aims to bridge an existing gap in the literature in Pakistan, as there are no evidence based therapeutic intervention tools available for narratives in Urdu.

The study further aims to provide a interventional resource pack for bilingual population who has Urdu as their first and dominant language. There is no therapeutic tool available for intervention that has incorporated multimodal sensory input for language intervention. Since tools developed internationally and from other countries cannot be incorporated due to cultural sensitivity and linguistic complexity, therefore, the current study will be able to incorporate these limitations. This study will provide a novel resource for intervention in the context of Pakistan.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participants with mild to moderate ASD aged between 6-11 years as assessed by ADOS (already diagnosed).
• CARS score 30-37 (mild to moderate)
• Both male and female participants.
• ASD participants at 2 Information Carrying word-level receptively and at Blank level 1 expressively. (will incorporate nouns, verbs and adjectives as per individual linguistic level).
• Participants with Urdu as their first language (home language) and English as a second language.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Individuals with any co-morbidity with Autism spectrum Disorder, such as hearing impairment, cleft lip and palate, visual impairment etc.
• Individuals with a mild to moderate diagnosis but severe behavioral difficulties
• Participants with any known sensory difficulties restricting use of certain sensory props.