Narrative Intervention in School-Aged Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review
Speech, Language and Hearing
Tam, J. Y. C., Barrett, E. A., et al. (2021).
Speech, Language and Hearing, 25(4), 463-480.
This systematic review investigates the effect of narrative interventions or oral narrative language interventions on narrative language, oral language, pragmatic skills, or academic-related language skills in school-aged children, 5 to 18 years old, on the autism spectrum.
Not stated
From database inception to December 19, 2019
Published group or single-case experimental designs (SCEDs) with experimental control. To be included, SCEDs had to report at least three pretreatment baseline data points to establish experimental control.
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Narrative interventions improved expressive and receptive narrative language compared to pretreatment in school-aged children on the autism spectrum. Narrative intervention demonstrated medium effects on expressive narrative macrostructure, preliminary evidence from one study for medium effects on expressive narrative microstructure, preliminary evidence for strong effects on comprehension of discourse, and inconsistent evidence of small to medium effects on perspective-taking skills. One study provided preliminary but inconclusive evidence that discourse comprehension improvements are maintained over time; however, there was no evidence of maintenance effect for other outcomes. The authors note that included studies demonstrated methodological flaws impacting the internal and external validity, thus reducing the strength of evidence.
