Share a story - Joint attention and shared enjoyment in sensory enhanced interactive storytelling for people with hearing impairment and multiple disabilities.
Sensory Enhanced Interactive Storytelling technique (SEIS-T) is designed for people with complex communication needs. In SEIS-T you tell a story with objects and augmentative and alternative communication, such as signs and pictograms. When there is joint attention and shared enjoyment, this is motivating for participants and readers. This study investigated what helps create joint attention and shared enjoyment during SEIS-T stories. The researchers saw that sharing sensory experiences and (augmentative and alternative) communication were important for supporting joint attention and shared enjoyment. Different story elements elicited attention and enjoyment from each participant. It helped the readers to receive video feedback coaching. After the coaching, there was often more attention or enjoyment during the storytelling. So video feedback coaching can be an important supportive tool in practice. In this project, materials have been developed to start sensory storytelling.
Reports
Endreport
In this study, we focused on the interaction during storytelling with people with auditory and intellectual disabilities, also called people with 'complex communication needs' (CCN). In addition, this study focused on the interaction during storytelling with people with congenital deafblindness, CDB. People with CCN and CDB need communication partners who know how to adapt their strategies during storytelling to their unique individual abilities. However, such adaptations do not appear to come naturally to communication partners. In 2016, the Sensory-Enhanced Storytelling Technique (SEIS-T) was
developed for people with CCN and CDB. SEIS-T uses Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) and an interactive storytelling protocol. The method consists of short stories about everyday situations that are recognizable to the person with CCN/CDB, providing a framework for interaction and communication. SEIS-T is enriched with sensory objects.
The objectives of this project were to understand 1) effective story elements and partner strategies for promoting moments of joint attention and shared enjoyment in persons with CCN or CDB during SEIS-T storytelling and 2) the effect of video-feedback coaching of communication partners aimed at applying specific strategies for promoting joint attention and shared enjoyment during SEIS-T storytelling.
The project started with a literature review and focus group sessions aimed at formulating a definition of shared enjoyment and joint attention in individuals with CCN/CDB and describing partner strategies that elicit shared enjoyment and joint attention in these target groups. A multiple-case experiment was then conducted with 12 pairs, consisting of a person with CCN/CDB and a reader. The communication coach, reader, and principal investigator developed an experiential activity, to be offered to the individual with CCN/CDB, that would serve as the basis for the sensory story. During
the baseline phase, this story was shared. During the intervention phase, the readers continued to share the same story but also received video feedback coaching to learn to apply strategies to promote joint attention and shared enjoyment.
Analysis of the video material showed that sharing sensory experiences and (augmentative and alternative) communication were important strategies for promoting joint attention and shared enjoyment. In addition, it was found that, for each pair, different elements of the story elicited attention and enjoyment. Story elements that appeared to be important had to do with eating or drinking, involved a sensory stimulus, involved contact with the body, or something funny or creepy. The video-feedback coaching proved effective for the majority of cases. Most communication partners began using
more strategies to promote shared attention and shared enjoyment during the intervention period. Often more shared enjoyment and joint attention developed after the readers participated in the video-feedback coaching. All readers reported that the video-feedback coaching was supportive to them. A recommendation is therefore to support readers of individuals with CCN/CDB with video-feedback coaching using the observation tool developed in this project. In this project, materials have been developed that support communication partners in starting to use SEIS-T.