FACILITATING EXPRESSION WITHOUT WORDS: AN INTERVENTION-BASED APPROACH FOR LEARNERS WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES

Abstract

The current research aimed to explore the assessment of the effectiveness of structured communication interventions for facilitating nonverbal communication among children with Intellectual Disabilities (ID). Touch: An aspect of nonverbal communication including eye contact, gestures, facial expression and body language play a critical social, emotional, and cognitive implications for people with ID. Quantitative research design was used with a pre and post intervention research design using a quasi-experimental design with a target population of 6 learners with moderate intellectual disability aged 9-12 years. The study involves two groups; experimental group and control group. The experimental group was taught in nonverbal communication skills that were related to the research study, while the control group followed the normal teaching regime. Instruments used for data collection: pre and post-tests, observation checklists and interviews with educators and parent- interview. In terms of the results, the analysis revealed that the subjects in the experimental group made very small gains in terms of nonverbal communication skills including: their ability to maintain eye contact; to produce meaningful gestures within a given context; and to co-ordinate the appropriate facial expressions and bodily movements. Conclusions highlighted integrated, medium-long term approaches to learner-specific interventions for children with ID and drawn attention to the role of educators, speech pathologists and caregivers in strategizing for effective communication. Based on the findings, the study establishes the effectiveness of intervention on the development of nonverbal communication and highlights directions for future research as well as focus on intervention improvement.