Booth Id:
BEHA025
Category:
Behavioral and Social Sciences
Year:
2023
Finalist Names:
Schindley, Taylor (School: Mentor High School)
Abstract:
A key component of autism is its effect on one's ability to communicate, for their brain is able to process information better visually than they are verbally. The purpose of this study is to identify which form of prompting provides the most comprehension for verbal and nonverbal students with autism. The research questions of this study are as follows: Will visual prompting be more effective for both verbal and nonverbal students with autism in kindergarten-eighth grade?, and Will verbal students with autism respond better to verbal prompting than nonverbal students with autism? I performed an experiment that involves verbal and nonverbal students with autism from kindergarten-eighth grade. For the verbal prompt, students were verbally told to hand me an object. For the visual prompt, the student was handed a visual aid with an image of an object and a “hand me” icon. The response times of the students and their accuracy (correct, incorrect, or no response) were collected. Two trials were completed with 26 students. The verbal prompting was completed on one day and visual prompting the same weekday of the following week. Data was loaded into Google sheets to allow for graphical analyses. Statistical analyses were performed to determine significance of the data by comparing the verbal and visual prompting results. Based on the data collected, students answered more quickly and more accurately when visually prompted compared to when they were verbally prompted. Additionally verbal students answered faster and more accurately compared to nonverbal students overall.