Development of Preverbal Communication Skills Scale for Children with Multiple Disabilities and Visual Impairment

Abstract

Communication is crucial for any human being and the children with disabilities are no exception. Due to the number and combination of their disabilities and/or conditions, children with multiple disabilities and visual impairment (MDVI) have especially limitations of the ability to communicate the meaningful and functional way with their environment. In order to improve the communication skills of children with MDVI, it is very important to identify unique, individual communication behaviors of these children. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable developmental assessment tool to evaluate preverbal communication skills of Turkish children with MDVI.Sequential explanatory mixed methods were used in the study. In the qualitative phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the mothers of 34 children suffering from MDVI to explore the preverbal communication behaviors of the children based on the daily observances of their mothers’ with a descriptive analysis being performed on the data. From the findings of the interviews and the literature review, Preverbal Communication Skills Scale for Children with Multiple Disabilities and Visual Impairment (PCSS-MDVI) and the scoring guide were developed. During the quantitative phase, 65 mothers of children with MDVI were given this scale in order to determine the validity and reliability of the scale. For the reliability analysis, 34 mothers of typically developing (TD) children age between 1 to 24 months old also were given the scale.The findings of the qualitative phase indicated that children with MDVI were communicating mostly with preverbal behaviors and the analysis on data from the quantitative phase with respect to item analysis, reliability and validity revealed that the scale is valid and reliable. The scale has 17 items and three subscales, which are; regulating behaviors, social interaction and joint attention. The majority of children with MDVI cannot communicate verbally and there is lack of studies and assessment tools for the purpose of effectively evaluate these children’s preverbal communicative behaviors in our country. Based on the analysis, the PCSS-MDVI has been demonstrated good preliminary psychometric properties and it can be used as an instrument to evaluate preverbal communication behaviors of children with MDVI. It is the preliminary study of the development of the scale. Thus, validation of the scale should be repeated with more participants and the data of the video observations of preverbal communication behaviors of children with MDVI should be added to the analysis.