The Art of Conversation

In the "before" video, two teens sit and talk in a high school cafeteria, with a quiet, disengaged student with autism sitting between them. Despite the teens' attempts to include the student with autism in their conversation, he remains rigid and detached, and after a few minutes, gets up from the table.

In the "after" video, the same students sit together, but this time, they all take part in the conversation. The student with autism initiates conversation and asks questions about what his friends have said. The other students do a better job of involving the student with autism in their dialogue, and the three have a pleasant social interaction.

What happened between the filming of the two videos is at the heart of Special Education Prof. Linda M. Bambara's research into the communication skills of teens with autism. Together with Christine L. Cole, professor of School Psychology, Bambara and a dedicated team of doctoral student research assistants in Special Education and School Psychology are training students in the art of conversation.

"Deficits in social-communication skills is one of the hallmark characteristics of individuals with autism," Bambara says. "And in order to succeed in the world and form relationships with other people and have friends, you need to know how to have a conversation."

To help students with autism develop these important communication skills, Bambara, Cole and their team are doing dual training of both high school students with autism and fellow students without the disability. They are providing autistic students with tools to initiate conversations and to keep them going. They are also teaching students without the disability the strategies for first engaging students with autism, then prompting them to converse back. "Because, after all," Bambara says, "conversation is not just about starting a conversation, but about topic maintenance skills—something many kids with autism lack."

The research is greatly needed, Bambara says. Few studies focused on social outcomes have been conducted in high schools. Most peer-mediated interventions have been for preschoolers and elementary students with autism, where interaction revolves around play.

"In high school and beyond, what does interaction revolve around? Conversation," she says.

Preliminary data from three case studies show the training is working. Both the students with autism and their peers without the disability exhibited marked improvements in the quality of their interactions following the training.

"Ultimately," Bambara says, "by improving the communication skills of students with autism, we want to impact their quality of life."

Story by Elizabeth Shimer Bowers