Children with autism or language disorders can overcome communication barriers with a new method

A research led by the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), with the participation of the UOC eHealth Center, has developed a new method to help children with language disorders or autism to overcome their communication barriers and reach standard levels of oral expression for their age. It is an intervention model that could be implemented both in clinical environments and in educational centers. Promoted by the Prosodia and Gestuality Study Group (GrEPG) of the Department of Translation and Language Sciences of the UPF, the method goes beyond the criteria of linguistics and incorporates the vision of educators, psychologists or speech therapists. For this reason, it has had the support of the GRECIL research group (Cognition and Language Research Group) and its NeuroDevelop eHealth Lab, from the UOC.

Telling stories through words and gestures: a key pillar of the model

One of the key pillars of this method is storytelling, as the ability to narrate a story orally is a key milestone in language development. To support this approach, the research team has created audiovisual materials and resources in Catalan on a range of stories, a type of resource that has been virtually non-existent in Catalan until now. According to Pilar Prieto, director of the GrEPG: “If the necessary coordination mechanisms are put in place to implement this model in schools, it could strengthen and complement the work that educational institutions do with children with special needs.”

This intervention model fosters the joint learning of all forms of language (verbal, gestural, body language, etc.), drawing on the Multimodal Narrative approach, according to which all language skills are interconnected and can reinforce one another. Scientific evidence shows that a child’s level of oral expression can be a predictor of future language skills, including literacy skills, as well as academic success and socialization.

From this perspective, the GrEPG has been researching ways to improve children’s language skills more broadly for some time and has developed a range of materials for this purpose. However, this is the first study to focus specifically on children with neurodevelopmental disorders. This latest study has been published in the journal Early Childhood Education. The article’s co-authors are Pilar Prieto, director of UPF’s GrEPG; Júlia Florit, a member of the GrEPG during the study, now affiliated with the University of the Balearic Islands; and Alfonso Igualada, a speech-language therapist and researcher affiliated with the NeuroDevelop eHealth Lab within the UOC’s GRECIL research group.

The model’s effectiveness, demonstrated in children aged 3 to 7 across Catalonia

The study involved a sample of 50 Catalan- and Spanish-speaking children aged 3 to 7, the age range in which children begin to produce somewhat more complex narratives. The sample was divided into two groups: an experimental group of 16 children with special needs, who received the new intervention, and a control group of 33 children, with whom the model was not used: 17 with neurodevelopmental disorders and 16 with no special needs. The children were recruited from seven schools and eight clinical centres.

The 16 children from the experimental group received nine individualized sessions, mainly with their speech-language therapists, although, in some cases, with hearing and language-specialized teachers, who provide support to students with communication impairments. During these sessions, the children watched videos featuring three different stories, all starring a capybara that overcomes various challenges. In the first version of each story, there was no dialogue, allowing the children to focus solely on the characters’ gestures and movements, while in the second version, words were added. Afterwards, with guidance from the professionals, the children were asked to retell the same stories in stages, following the sequence of events, or narrate new ones.

Each session lasted 30 minutes, an optimal duration for maintaining an appropriate level of concentration and attention. As the sessions took place once a week, the intervention lasted for more than a term. The children’s oral expression skills were evaluated before and after the intervention period. The results show that the new intervention model significantly improves the ability of children with autism and language disorders to structure the key elements of a story: the characters, problem, attempt to address the problem and resolution. After completing the sessions, the children with neurodevelopmental disorders scored 3.77 out of 6 when narrating a new story they had not heard before, bringing them close to the score of 4.04 achieved by children without special needs. By contrast, children with these disorders in the control group achieved a significantly lower score (2.29). Nevertheless, further research is needed to gauge the long-term effects and determine whether the differences observed can be sustained over time.

The intervention also included a Dynamic Assessment process, which showed that the fewer prompts and cues a child needs to answer questions about the stories correctly, the greater their potential for learning.

Looking ahead, the research team has identified a new challenge. Although the new method improves the ability of children with disorders to structure a narrative, no significant improvements have been observed in their ability to explore the characters’ mental states and emotions, which are not usually conveyed explicitly in stories. Strengthening these skills may require specific training or a longer-term intervention.

This project is aligned with the UOC's research missions: Planetary Health and Well-being and Education of the future—and contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3: Health and Well-being, and 4: Quality Education.

Reference article

Florit-Pons, J., Prieto, P. & Igualada, A. An Individualized Multimodal Narrative Intervention for Young Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Early Childhood Educ J 54, 5005–5020 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-026-02190-z

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