Development and Validation of Preverbal (Communication) Skills Package for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Study of Children with Autism

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a package of empowerment of pre-verbal (communication) skills for children with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially children with autism. This research was done descriptively-analytically. This research method had two parts: qualitative research and quantitative research. In the qualitative research section, the inductive qualitative content analysis method has been used. To analyze the qualitative content, a systematic search of articles, dissertations, and books related to the field of pre-verbal skills of children with autism spectrum disorder was used. Also, the face and content validity methods were used to check the validity of the developed package. Finally, the results of all content analyses performed on sources and components derived from them were presented in the form of a pre-verbal skills empowerment package. The results of content validity based on the opinions of 12 experts in this field showed that the designed package has good content validity (0.83). Therefore, it can be concluded that the pre-communication (verbal) skills empowerment package designed has the necessary formal and content validity and can be used in educational and clinical contexts.