The Research Base for TalkAbility™ – The Hanen Program® for Parents of Autistic Children Who Are Speaking in Sentences and Having Conversations
In the TalkAbility program, parents learn how to support their young autistic child to:
- participate in more extended back and forth conversations
- understand what people say without words in a conversation
- understand how other people feel and identify ways they could respond
- explore new play ideas and strengthen their friendships
Perspective taking in conversation
Like all Hanen programs, TalkAbility is based on principles that are consistent with best practice recommendations: involving parents as early as possible in their child’s intervention program and facilitating communication in naturalistic contexts. TalkAbility's content draws from the research on what helps autistic children develop their understanding of social situations and different ways they can navigate them. The literature uses the term, “theory of mind” to describe this ability to understand what someone else thinks or feels. During interactions with others, empathy and perspective taking are important for all the participants in the interaction.
Research on what helps children develop perspective taking is built into TalkAbility™
There is an abundance of research that shows that “parent talk” is crucial to the young child’s development of a theory-of-mind or tuning in (de Villiers & de Villiers, 2014; Kimhi, 2014). For instance, children whose parents talk to them about desires, especially contrasting the differences among what people desire, subsequently have a better understanding of how others feel and think. So, even something as simple as discussing the different cereals that each family member likes can help children develop perspective-taking. This research is reflected in what parents learn in the TalkAbility program as they learn to use the kind of talk that is known to foster the child’s development of “theory of mind”.
TalkAbility helps parents choose specific tuning-in vocabulary words that their children need to hear and helps them incorporate these words into their everyday conversations with their children.
Research on using a child’s emerging language skill to develop and cement concepts
Parental input is only part of what helps children tune into the thoughts of others. Once children have the language that enables them to discuss what’s going on in someone else’s mind, with words like “they think,” or “they know,” they are better equipped to understand social situations. Children often need language to enable them to develop concepts. So, when children acquire the ability to formulate sentences that include mental state verbs (think, feel) (for example, “He thinks that he’s the best player”), they have a way to imagine other people’s thoughts as well as talk about them.
In the TalkAbility program, parents are encouraged to listen for when their child uses phrases like, “I think so,” and “I don’t know” so they can pick up on them and use more of this kind of language themselves, giving their children even more models of abstract language from which to learn.
TalkAbility helps parents know what the next step is by identifying the child’s current stage in understanding social situations and perspective taking.
Stage 1
Understanding wanting: when children understand that people want different things;
Stage 2
Understanding thinking: when children understand that people think differently;
Stage 3
Understanding that seeing leads to knowing: when children understand that seeing something themselves doesn’t mean another person can see the same thing;
Stage 4
Understanding hidden feelings: when children understand that what we say or how we look isn’t always the way we feel inside, and;
Stage 5
Understanding false beliefs: when children understand that people can sometimes
think things are true when they’re not.
The TalkAbility approach involves parents in their child’s intervention and facilitates communication in naturalistic contexts. TalkAbility does more than help parents support their child’s understanding of social situations – it also supports parents to better understand their child’s perspective. In this way, empathy learning is a “two-way street” in which parent and child grow together while connecting and having fun.
What does the research say about the TalkAbility Program?
Im-Bolter & de la Roche (2023) completed a qualitative study to evaluate parents’ perspectives of their participation in the TalkAbility Program. At the end of the program, the researchers organized parent responses according to four themes (a) communication (difficulties, frustrations and progress), (b) social relationships, (c) communication strategies and (d) thoughts and emotions about TalkAbility. After the program, parents reported their child participated in conversations more fully, demonstrated increased expressive and receptive language and showed increased understanding of different perspectives. Parents also reported changes in their child’s friendships with peers, with their child forming and maintaining more friendships and with parents arranging playdates more often. At the end of the program, parents reported they felt confident and knowledgeable about strategies to promote their child’s social communication. Parents reported they found TalkAbility to be empowering and felt confident in their abilities to support their child’s communication development. They appreciated that the strategies they learned could be applied flexibly within their daily interactions with their child.
