Philippine E-Journals

Task-based learning uses language as a tool for expressing, not a body of knowledge to be memorized, thus, using tasks to improve student’s language skills. This study aimed to identify and evaluate the communication strategies used by younger siblings of ASD children in selected domestic tasks and characterize the response of ASD children to these communication strategies. Five pairs of siblings were tasked to finish a set of household chores and were video-recorded. The videos were transcribed and analyzed. Younger siblings, researcher and an observer assessed the strategies based on six criteria. Strategies observed in the study are affirmation, correction and modeling strategies. It showed that the criteria with the highest and lowest scores are speed of the ASD child’s response and ability to negotiate is the criterion, respectively. Strategies used are effective in eliciting fast responses from the ASD child but not in facilitating communication. Results showed that communication strategies induced responses on ASD child; these were categorized as compliance, non-compliance and neutral. Results show that younger sibling use affirmative strategies to continue guiding the ASD child to compliance and finish the domestic task. When the ASD child, however, manifests non-compliance and/or neutrality younger siblings the use of corrective and modeling strategies are needed to direct them back to compliance.