Interview Paper
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School
California State University, Dominguez Hills *
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Course
444
Subject
Linguistics
Date
Apr 3, 2024
Type
Pages
5
Uploaded by BaronRoseEmu14
Parent Interview
Jazz Roberson
California State University, Dominguez Hills
CDV 444 - Cognition, Language, and Schooling
Professor Maya Evashkovsky, Ph.D.
October 29, 2023
For this interview I had the opportunity to talk to a mother of a ten year old child with
Autism. Her child was diagnosed with Autism when he was about three and he had pretty much
no language skills at all at this point. She had informed me about how her son is primarily an
English speaker, but earlier in his development up until now, he has been using sign language as
well. While he was never truly fluent in sign language he had picked up enough of it to be able to
communicate when he needed something or wanted more of something at a very young age. This
was huge for him and the rest of the family because it was the first time that they felt as if they
were truly communicating with him in an effective way. This I related back to some of the
lecture slides we had gone over in class,
Literacy Development in the Prelinguistic Stage 18
months to 3 years,
during week 5. During the first eighteen months of her son's life he should’ve
been able to respond to simple questions and requests, communicate non verbally in some way,
engage communication to some extent with some adults, and start to babble in a way that sounds
like words (Evashkovsky, 2023, Slides 8-11). Now from 18 months to 3 years old her son
should’ve had the skills to start speaking actual words to communicate with his expressions
along with a few simple words. This is the age when he should’ve started using simple phrases to
express his wants, needs, and to have any of his questions answered (Evashkovsky, 2023, Slides
12-16). Due to his autism his speech development was delayed and the delayed speech
development was one of the key indicators of his autism.
When I asked about how she feels like she has assisted in her child’s language
development during playtime she mentioned that she encourages him to participate in pretend
play with all of his plushies. During his playtime at home she is listening in, or is involved in the
playtime, and can assist or give suggestions to her son about his language or the proper way to
say certain things. During this time she also is trying her best to just overall get him to talk more
to continuously keep improving his language skills. I can see some of Lev Vygotsky's ideas shine
through when she explained how his pretend play time is. During the lecture slides from week 3
we discussed zones of proximal development and scaffolding a child’s learning(Evashkovsky,
2023, Slides 5-6). She is talking to her son while he is doing a preferred task and trying to teach
him ways to improve his language in a supportive way. Through her parenting skills she feels as
if she is helping him improve his language skills by talking to him and treating him like the rest
of her children. When he gets home from school she will ask him about his day, but will be
vague and not disclose too much information. Even though he does not say much she will ask
multiple follow up questions to get more out of him. When they are at home as a family she feels
like it is important to not make him feel different from his siblings because he would not learn
the same things as his brothers if he got some type of special treatment.
Once we started discussing the challenges both her and her child have faced during his
language development she informed me that the biggest one was when he was non- verbal at one
point. This was challenging for the entire family because he could not communicate what he
wanted in a way everyone else could understand. This frustration led to her son to start
screaming or crying which also led to the rest of the families frustrations because they were
doing their best to guess what he wanted, but were not always successful. It was also very
challenging for her son to fully understand what people were talking about or saying to him
along with him struggling to find ways to respond in ways that made sense.
A big reason for the progress he has made with his language skills is due to the fact that
he has an IEP that requires him to do speech lessons at school. He does about three hours of
speech services a week in a group setting which helps his language skills a lot because he
participates and talks much more when he is having fun with peers. This I connected to our
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