Strategies Used by a Mother to Develop the Vocabulary of Her Child with Autism               during Play Activities

Tuğba Taskın-Eser, Nur Akçin 
(Ataturk Faculty of Education, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey)

Abstract: Main goal of this research is, to describe the strategies applied by a mother with a child with autism speaking with single word sentences, for improving her child’s vocabulary during play activities.
    This research is based on a case study design, a qualitative research methodology. The participants of this research are a mother with a child with autism and her three-year-old autistic boy child. The database for this research had been gathered using; diaries, field notes, detailed observations, interviews, and video recordings.
      Video tape recordings were performed and analyzed, during play activities at natural home environment. The mother’s interactions with her child were analyzed in the aspect of “play activities”. Video tape analyses were made by way of ethnographic analytic techniques. According to research findings, 11 verbal and 3 non-verbal strategies were determined, which were frequently used by the mother with an interaction with her child.
    As a conclusion it is possible to say that this study is important in exemplifying that modeling method, mand-model procedure, time delay procedure, and incidental teaching procedure methods can be used in daily lives of mother and child.

Key words: children with autism; natural language approach; milieu teaching; qualitative case study