Aytism

Constructs:

In my own research I will be measuring 3 variables as my constructs such as the following:

1) Verbal ability

2) Social interactions or the degree of participation in group work or plays

3) Gender

Participants: 20 autistic children between the ages of 6 to 7 with identical IQ levels, both sexes, with equal number of participants- 10 to each

Purpose:

As researchers claim, autism is four times more prevalent in boys than girls. According to this claim I would like to test whether gender is an effective or dominant factor in determining children's progress both in verbal abilities and the kind of social interactions they encounter in the educational settings such as kindergartens or schools.

Methodology:

Instruments: CARS rating scale (childhood autism rating scale) developed by Eric schopler in the early 1970s, it is based on observed behavior, professionals evaluate a child's relationship to people, body use, adaptation to change, listening response and verbal communication.

AUTISM SCREENING QUESTIONNAIRE: a 40 item screening scale that has been used with children 4 and older to help evaluate communication skills and social functioning. Plus observations with the help of a professional team including a speech therapist to assess the amount of progress in verbal abilities and interacting with the children's care givers or parents during the research.

Procedure: As far as I'm concerned, the nature of this research lends itself to both qualitative and quantitative methods, in the sense that there needs to be a lot of close observations to assess the trend that the participants follow plus some numerical data which support the findings regarding verbal abilities. In assessing the degree of engagement or participation in groupwork there might be the use of some rein forcers such as toys or chocolates. Here the main emphasis revolves around gender. Therefore an attempt should be made to have exactly the same conditions for both sexes. Since assessing the constructs focus more on gender it could have been more reliable to have a larger sample

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