Training parents to use the natural language paradigm to increase their autistic children's speech.
Train parents to run short, toy-filled NLP play sessions at home and watch nonverbal or echoing preschoolers with autism start talking in days.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Bachman et al. (1988) taught eight parents of non-speaking or echoing preschoolers with autism to run the Natural Language Paradigm at home.
Each parent learned to set out varied toys, follow the child’s lead, and give clear speech prompts during play.
Sessions happened in living rooms and kitchens, not at a clinic table.
What they found
All eight children began to talk more during play with their parents.
The new words also showed up later in untrained rooms and with new toys.
How this fits with other research
Green et al. (1987) ran the same NLP play routine themselves in clinic one year earlier. E et al. simply handed the script to parents and got the same lift in words, proving parents can drive the change.
Fullana et al. (2007) later used NLP with older adults who have memory loss and saw more appropriate speech, showing the trick works past preschool.
Gevarter et al. (2021) swapped living-room visits for Zoom coaching with Latinx families and still raised child turns and gestures, a modern echo of the 1988 home plan.
Why it matters
You no longer need a clinic slot to start speech in nonverbal or echoing kids. Teach parents the loose-play script once, then coach them as they cook or play on the carpet. The child gets more trials each day, and you free up staff for other cases.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Parents of four nonverbal and four echolalic autistic children were trained to increase their children's speech by using the Natural Language Paradigm (NLP), a loosely structured procedure conducted in a play environment with a variety of toys. Parents were initially trained to use the NLP in a clinic setting, with subsequent parent-child speech sessions occurring at home. The results indicated that following training, parents increased the frequency with which they required their children to speak (i.e., modeled words and phrases, prompted answers to questions). Correspondingly, all children increased the frequency of their verbalizations in three nontraining settings. Thus, the NLP appears to be an efficacious program for parents to learn and use in the home to increase their children's speech.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1988 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1988.21-391