HOW DO ADULTS WITH ASD MAINTAINING TOPIC ?: A LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS IN INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
Abstract
This research is an extension of previous research investigating children with Autism Spectrum Disorder’s (hereafter: ASD) spontaneous speech (e.g., Manolitsi & Botting, 2011) in relation with aspects of discourse that influence a spoken discourse’s cohesion and coherence (e.g., Bishop, 1999). Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder, hereafter ASD (Solomon, 2004) show difficulties in social communication, as well as fixated interest and repetitive behavior explained in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual for Mental Disorder, fifth edition (DSM-V ; APA 2013). In communication, individuals with ASD who are able to do reciprocal dialogue with other people commonly feel difficulty to switch in a flexible way from one topic to another. They often give improper responses to the hints given by other people (Tager-Flusberg & Anderson, 1991; Volden, Coolican, Garon, White, & Bryson, 2008). This research is a linguistic study based on the psychological aspects and discourse of adult verbal interaction with ASD. This study used 2 adult spontaneous speech with autism spectrum as primary data and 6 normal adults as secondary data. The focus of this research is the features that adults with autism use in maintaining narrative topics and how the control group understands as listeners to the narratives produced by adults with ASD. Finally, the result of this research can be the first step in diagnosing communication disorders experienced by people suffering from ASD.
Keywords: autism, maintaining topic, inclusive education
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