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Article
Expressive Communication Strengths of Adults With Severe to Profound Intellectual Disabilities as Reported by Group Home Staff
Communication Disorders Quarterly (2005)
  • Paul Cascella, San Jose State University
Abstract
This study documents the communication strengths of 14 adults who resided in community group-home settings through the use of staff informant reports. These participants had as many as 12 different communication forms (e.g., reaching gestures, body orientation, facial expression, leading gestures, eye gaze, vocalizations) and 11 different communication functions (e.g., conveying emotional state, making a choice when one was presented, requesting desired objects and people, conveying protest). The author compares his results to an earlier report (McLean, Brady, McLean, & Behrens, 1999) to demonstrate that caregiver report was as clinically useful as structured sampling in identifying the communication repertoires of these individuals. The author also discusses clinical implications with regard to the role of the speech— language pathologist and communication assessment in the adult community group-home setting.
Keywords
  • communication assessment,
  • intellectual disability,
  • distal gestures,
  • language assessment,
  • elementary school,
  • cognitive impairments
Publication Date
Spring 2005
Publisher Statement
SJSU users: use the following link to login and access the article via SJSU databases
Citation Information
Paul Cascella. "Expressive Communication Strengths of Adults With Severe to Profound Intellectual Disabilities as Reported by Group Home Staff" Communication Disorders Quarterly Vol. 26 Iss. 3 (2005) p. 156 - 163
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/paul_cascella/8/