JCPSLP Vol 22 No 2 2020

correction on 2.6% of occasions and book-related utterances on 97.4% of occasions. There were no instances of praise during the interaction. In the interaction between Anne and Tom, there was one instance of comprehension monitoring and 30 utterances in total. When reading with Tom, Anne provided much more praise (36.7% of occasions), error correction on 20% of occasions, and book-related utterances on 43.3% of occasions. Tom, Anne’s younger child, had stronger reading accuracy and comprehension skills than James; Tom’s skills were in the average range while James’ were in the “very low” and “below average” range, respectively. Discussion In the current study we explored the nature of mothers’ behaviours during SBR interactions with each of their children with ASD. Results showed that mothers used a different approach to reading instruction with each of their children in terms of the types of utterances they used. These findings add to the literature by providing preliminary descriptive data about SBR in families with primary school aged siblings with ASD. Due to the age of the child participants in this sample, this study adopted a different coding system to studies of preschoolers (Westerveld et al., 2020), exploring key elements of parent feedback such as praise, error correction and comprehension monitoring. Comparison with previous research In terms of the main categories of utterances produced during SBR, both of the mothers in this study delivered a different proportion of praise, error correction and book- related utterances to each of their children, consistent with patterns seen in research with SBR interactions with neurotypical preschool children (van Kleeck & Beckley- McCall, 2002). Cheryl provided mostly book-related utterances with her older child Nicola, with a majority of these occurring prior to reading, possibly in an effort to prepare her for the selected book (i.e., activating background knowledge) and the task of reading itself. However, with Andrew, she provided mostly error correction and did not use any extra textual utterances prior to reading as she did with her older child. Cheryl used half the number of extra textual utterances with Andrew as with Nicola, which is consistent with the predominant parent approach in the Hammett et al. (2003) study. It was also noted that Cheryl did not engage in any instances of verbal praise during the interaction with Andrew. As this is exploratory research we can only speculate on the nature of these results. Cheryl may have attempted to provide more feedback to Nicola compared with Andrew due to Nicola’s multiple diagnoses of auditory processing disorder and specific language impairment and the perceived greater impact of these co-morbidities on her reading. Based on Nicola and Andrew’s relatively low reading comprehension scores, it is interesting to note that no instances of comprehension monitoring occurred in either interaction. Anne also appeared to approach the reading interactions with each of her children differently. Although her younger child, Tom, had average reading accuracy and comprehension scores, Anne provided more praise during the interaction than she did with her older child, James. In these cases, the low rate of praise relative to error correction or book-related utterances may be attributed to fewer opportunities to deliver praise with a struggling reader. In James’ case, Anne may have tempered the amount of praise she delivered to be more age-appropriate,

Table 2. Utterance types

Utterance type

Description

Example

Good job

Praise

Mother gives positive feedback a

Error correction

Corrective feedback a

Correction of word order I can do That must make him a little bit sad

Comment/question relating to book content or reading process

Book-related (e.g., comprehension monitoring, confirmation/ acknowledgement)

a Verbal feedback.

Table 3. Utterance types within SBR dyads

Sub-types of BK utterances

Parent–child dyad

Percentage of utterance types (Total utterances)

Cheryl–Nicola

PR: 6.5% EC: 25.8% BK: 67.7%

Print/reading related: 15 Book content: 0

Behavioural: 3 Confirmation/ acknowledgement: 3 Comprehension monitoring: 0

(31)

Print/reading related: 0 Book content: 2

Cheryl–Andrew PR: 0%

EC: 69.2% BK: 30.8%

Behavioural: 0 Confirmation/ acknowledgement: 1 Comprehension monitoring: 1

(13)

Print/reading related: 15 Book content: 7

Anne–James

PR: 0% EC: 2.6% BK: 97.4%

Behavioural: 0 Confirmation/ acknowledgement: 13 Comprehension monitoring: 3

(39)

Print/reading related: 8 Book content: 5

Anne–Tom PR: 36.7% EC: 20% BK: 43.3%

Behavioural: 0 Confirmation/ acknowledgement: 0 Comprehension monitoring: 0

(30)

Note. PR = praise utterance; EC = error correction utterance; BK = book-related utterance.

occasions. Andrew, Cheryl’s younger child, had reading abilities that were similar to Nicola’s, in terms of age-based percentile ranks. However, for Andrew there were 13 utterances in total and Cheryl provided much more error correction (69.2% of occasions). There were no instances of verbal praise. Both children scored “very low” on measures of reading accuracy and comprehension. Anne Anne and her children were observed to alternate reading aloud. During the interaction with her older child James, there were 39 utterances in total. Anne provided error

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JCPSLP Volume 22, Number 2 2020

Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology