Teaching conversational skills to children with autism

In their search for answers about autism, education researchers at Brigham Young University (BYU) are conducting studies and finding solutions to improve the development of children with autism. Although healthcare providers generally know the signs of autism in toddlers, children with autism in the United States don’t typically receive a diagnosis until age 4. Many of these children miss opportunities for intervention during the most sensitive period of brain development, and some are never even diagnosed. Autism Connect, an interdisciplinary research group at BYU, has outlined ways to improve the accuracy, timeliness, and helpfulness of autism diagnoses to provide better help to children sooner. A paper detailing their results was named as one of the top 10 articles of 2020 in the influential journal Pediatrics.

Another team of BYU professors and undergraduate student researchers has found that animated characters can help children with autism develop and improve conversational skills. In fact, children in the BYU study learned more by talking with an animated fish avatar than they learned by talking with another person.

“Our goal was never just to teach them to talk to a fish,” associate professor Ryan Kellems explains. The kids graduate from conversing with the avatar to practicing conversational skills face-to-face, first with a student researcher and then with a peer. Children with autism usually avoid interacting in social situations. “When we actually saw them start a conversation with the other kids, that was a really neat experience,” says Kellems. The team shared their results at several conferences and are planning further research with avatars that are more humanlike.

One student on the team, Bruna Goncalves, recalls how incredible it was to watch a child with autism she had worked with begin using what he’d learned and talking with other children. “I’ll always remember that,” she says. Students like Goncalves embrace experiential learning opportunities that make meaningful impacts in the world and help others realize their potential.