Gestural & Oral Communication and Symbolization –validating a tool for analysing outcome of early intervention

Abstract

Parents to pre-schoolers with severe developmental language delays usually report elevated communication by their children after participating in a parental communication course. Valid, reliable and convenient observational outcome measures are warranted. Video recordings of three children’s communication were collected at Pre-and Post-intervention, and at a Follow-up. These were analysed independently by the author and a blinded clinician focusing on the child´s Gestural and Oral Communication and Symbolization (GOCS) ability, an instrument developed for the current study. In addition, parents were interviewed with the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales (VABS) and completed the Swedish Communicative Development Inventories questionnaires (SECDI). Strong significant correlations were found between symbolic GOCS data and corresponding VABS and SECDI data. Follow-up interviews and additional parent information largely supported GOCS data. Inter-observer intra-class correlations were excellent. Reliability and methodological issues, as well as further development and validation of GOCS are discussed.