Dickerson2007

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Dickerson2007
BibType ARTICLE
Key Dickerson2007
Author(s) Paul Dickerson, Penny Stribling, John Rae
Title Tapping into interaction: How children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders design and place tapping in relation to activities in progress
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Conversation Analysis, Autism, Social interaction, Gesture, Children
Publisher
Year 2007
Language
City
Month
Journal Gesture
Volume 7
Number 3
Pages 271–303
URL Link
DOI 10.1075/gest.7.3.02dic
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

Children diagnosed with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are frequently thought to be incapable of using communicative gestures. When children with an ASD undertake motor actions — other than practical actions (such as direct manipulation of the physical environment) — these are often taken to be either impaired relative to control groups or symptomatic of the child’s pathology. Drawing on videotaped data of children with an ASD interacting in home and school settings, we examine adult–child interactions in which children repeatedly tap items that are presented to them (for a response). We show how these actions are systematically placed at just those points where it is appropriate for the child to provide an answer (or candidate solution) to the adult’s question but before the child has completed it. Thus by investigating the sequential context in which actions of this sort are placed we can better appreciate the interactional work they undertake and the extent to which they are communicative gestures rather than either being interactionally irrelevant or symptomatic of an underlying pathology.

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