Interaction and Language Scaffolding Strategies Used by Mothers of Children with Typical Development, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Intellectual Disability During Shared Book Reading

Abstract

During the early childhood period parent-child interactions become crucial for the acquisition of especially the language and communication skills. Shared book reading (SBR), which is an interaction-based approach, can be used in making children acquire language and communication skills. The purpose of this study was to determine the interaction and language scaffolding strategies used by mothers of children with typical development (TD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and intellectual disability (ID) during SBR as well as compare the strategy use among the groups. The study group consisted of 45 mothers, 15 mothers from each group. The ages of children were 36-71 months. The data collection tools were Turkish Early Language Development Test, Demographic Information Form, and SBR Rating Scale, which was developed by the researchers. The study findings showed that there was variety among the groups in terms of level and frequency of mothers' strategies they used for interaction and language scaffolding during SBR. The frequency of strategies mothers used differed during SBR with their children, some strategies were more preferred than others and some were less preferred. In addition, there was a significant difference in favor of mothers of children with ASD in terms of sub dimensions of strategy use related to language comprehension and production.