Abstract:

This paper shows the preliminary results of the changes which are made in the quality of the communication of 20 children and teenagers with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HFASD), after making use (or not) of a Training Program in Referential Ecological Communication (TPREC).
This improvement is assessed with Referential Ecological Communication Tasks in three moments: Pretest, postest and a test of transfer.

Our paper present the results obtained with regard to the participants’ communication skills after carrying out an intervention programme that relies on the above-mentioned approach (i.e. Referential Ecological Communication).

The results in the quality of the communication of 10 children and teenagers after carrying out the intervention programme are compared with the results of another group of 10 children with the same diagnosis condition, number of people, sex, chronological age, mental age and level of cognitive working, but with this group the training program is not used.

The group with the training program shows a significant improvement in the quality of their messages between the pretest and the postest. In relation to the group without the training program, the improvement is noticed in the postest and in the transfer.

The theoretical and practical implications of these results are argued.

Keywords:

High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (HF-ASD), Communicative Competence, Referential Communication, Training Program, Educational Research Experience.