In this presentation we discuss how, during daily interaction at home, caregivers (mothers) pursue responses from their adolescent sons who have been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Previous research demonstrated the desirability of investigating the communication behaviors of people diagnosed with ASD from a Conversation Analytic point of view (Dickerson, Rae, Stribling, & Dautenhahn, 2005; Dobbinson, Perkins, & Bourcher, 1998; Solomon, 2004). A number of studies have focused on the routinized utterances that are frequent in the speech of people diagnosed with ASD (Local & Wootton, 1995; Stribling, Rae, & Dickenson, 2007). However, there is a lack of research comparing the nature of caregiver pursuit of responses from individuals with an intellectual disability and those without. This study fills this gap and seeks to explore the types of responses caregivers pursue across the two groups. Utilizing Conversation Analysis, we examine two sets of video-recorded naturally occurring conversations between mothers and their sons diagnosed with ASD: one son manifests an intellectual disability and the other son does not. Analysis revealed observable differences in the nature of responses these two mothers pursued. While the mother with the son manifesting an intellectual disability pursued responses without consideration for type, the mother with the son without an intellectual disability pursued preferred responses, or agreement, similar to those found in conversation between interactants with typical development (Pomerantz, 1984). The findings indicate that the pragmatic practices used in ordinary conversation may be teachable to people diagnosed with ASD when they do not manifest intellectual disabilities.

Authors:
Eriko Kamei, Kanagawa University, Japan
David Aline, Kanagawa University, Japan
Yuri Hosoda, Kanagawa University, Japan

About the Presenter(s)
Eriko Kamei is a lecturer at Kanagawa University, Yokohama in Japan. She received a doctoral degree from Kanagawa University in 2024. Her research examines atypical interaction from conversation analytic perspective.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Sunday Schedule

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