Teacher responses to the communicative attempts of children with autism

We assessed teacher responses to the communicative attempts of children with autism. Teachers were first interviewed using the Inventory of Potential Communicative Acts (IPCA) to identify behaviors in each child's repertoire that the teachers considered to be communicative. Interview results suggested that the teachers interpreted many of the children's prelinguistic gestures, body movements, and facial expressions, as forms of communication. Naturalistic observations were then conducted in the child's classroom to determine how teachers responded to the children's identified forms of prelinguistic behaviors. The results of these naturalistic observations suggested that the teachers often did not respond to the child's prelinguistic behaviors in ways that acknowledged their communicative intent. Implications of the results on the child's communication development and for intervention efforts are discussed.

'Slippage' is not a dirty word: Considering the usefulness of Giddens' notion of knowledgeability in understanding the possibilities for teacher education

The attempt to understand the relationship between messages intended and messages received has been an enduring issue in teacher education. For the past three decades researchers have made forays into understanding this enduring issue, and in the process have drawn on various explanatory frameworks, one of them being socialisation. In this paper we work with Giddens' structuration theory as well as his concept of knowledgeability as analytical frameworks for understanding the relationship between messages intended (by the teacher educator) and messages received (by the student-teachers). Our discussion is informed by the findings of a study that investigated student-teachers' interpretations of the pedagogical process of a physical education teacher education course. Data generated from conversations with, and observations of, the student-teachers indicated that there was considerable “slippage” between the teacher educator's critical pedagogy inspired intentions and what was understood by the student-teachers.