LSHSS Quality of Communication Life in Adolescents With High-Functioning Autism and Asperger Syndrome: A Feasibility Study Sloane Burgess Kent State University, Kent, OH Lyn S. Turkstra University of Wisconsin, Madison S peech-language pathologists (SLPs) are frequently the first professionals involved in the assessment and treatment of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). Impairments in language and communication are the most common and earliest indicators that a child may have an ASD (Dawson et al., 2004; Filipek et al., 1999; Osterling, Dawson, & Munson, 2002), and it is common for students with ASD to require and receive school-based treatment for these impairments beginning in early childhood (Bitterman, Daley, Misra, Carlson, & Markowitz, 2008). There is growing evidence that this inter- vention makes a critical contribution not only to the child’s de- velopment of language and social skills, but also to his or her outcomes beyond therapy (Hume, Bellini, & Pratt, 2005). As these children become adolescents, however, remarkably little is known about their outcomes. The present study was designed to address this knowledge gap by investigating the use of a self-report measure designed for people with acquired communication disorders, the Quality of Communication Life Scale (QCL; Paul et al., 2004), as a tool to elicit the quality of communication life (QoCL) perceptions of a specific group of individuals affected by ASD—adolescents with high-functioning autism/Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS). 1 Adolescents with AS were selected for this investigation because studies of perceived quality of life (QoL) may be more feasible in this subgroup of individuals with ASD because they are most 1 The term HFA/AS is frequently used to describe individuals on the autism spectrum who have average to above-average verbal intelligence. For the purposes of this article, the term AS will be used to refer to both AS and HFA. ABSTRACT: Purpose: This study was designed to evaluate the feasibility of using the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s Quality of Communication Life Scale (QCL; Paul et al., 2004) for a group of individuals with developmental communication disorders—adolescents with high-functioning autism/Asperger syndrome (HFA/AS). Perceptions of quality of communication life (QoCL) have not been studied in this group and are important for intervention planning. Method: Fourteen adolescents with HFA/AS and 15 typically developing peers rated their QoCL using the QCL. Mothers of study participants also rated their children’s QoCL. It was hypothesized that the adolescents with HFA/AS would rate their QoCL less positively than their peers and more positively than their mothers. Results: The QoCL ratings of adolescents with HFA/AS were significantly lower than those of their peers but were generally positive. Self-ratings for the HFA/AS group were somewhat higher than parent ratings. Conclusion: The results of this study provide evidence that adolescents with HFA/AS can effectively evaluate aspects of their QoCL and that the QCL may provide useful information for this group. The study also provides preliminary evidence that adolescents with HFA/AS rate their QoCL lower than their peers. Further research is necessary to better understand the meaning of lower ratings for this group and the effects of intervention on their perceptions of their QoCL. KEY WORDS: quality of communication life, Asperger syndrome, adolescents, autism LANGUAGE,SPEECH, AND HEARING SERVICES IN SCHOOLS • Vol. 41 • 474–487 • October 2010 * American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 474 Downloaded From: http://lshss.pubs.asha.org/pdfaccess.ashx?url=/data/journals/lshss/929222/ on 06/20/2017 Terms of Use: http://pubs.asha.org/ss/rights_and_permissions.aspx