Sociopragmatic skills in children with cerebral palsy

Nataša Kenda (2013) Sociopragmatic skills in children with cerebral palsy. Diploma thesis.

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Abstract

Communication is one of the most important means that enables us life in society. My thesis is therefore dedicated to the use of language among people or pragmatics. I am mainly interested in special features in communication and pragmatics in children with cerebral palsy. In the theoretical introduction, I firstly presented the characteristics of communication and the process of language development of children in the early years of age. Special attention is paid to pragmatics, its development and the important pragmatic skills of responsiveness and assertiveness. Secondly, I also described the population of people with cerebral palsy and their language development. In the empirical part, I used the Social-conversational skills rating scale, which was made by Luigi Girolametto (translation and adaptation: M. Ozbič, D. Kogovšek and B. Penko). In my research I was identifying the responsiveness and assertiveness development in children less than four years old. Then I compared the results among the following groups: children without cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities, children with cerebral palsy without intellectual disabilities, and among children with cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities. I was also identifying the differences between the sexes and the ages of children. Statistically significant differences in the results were shown only when comparing groups of children with cerebral palsy and intellectual disabilities with the other two groups of children. Children with cerebral palsy without intellectual disabilities achieve slightly lower scores than their peers without cerebral palsy, but these differences are not statistically significant. The rating scale was filled in by the parents or guardians of the children. They are the ones who can benefit from knowing the results in terms of encouraging their children to an even more effective integration in communication with others.

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