The Future of Education

The present study, carried over a period of four years, investigated the collateral effects of implementing LCSMA on the cognitive development of 6 children with ASD (4 children were diagnosed with autism and 2 children were diagnosed with ASD), aged between 3 years and 3 years and 10 months old at the beginning of the study, and an average of 3 years and 5 months. During the 4 years of experimental study, the children benefited from the intervention based on language and communication stimulation method used for children with autistic spectrum disorder (LCSMA - Language and Communication Stimulation Method in Autism; Dascăl Crișan, 2012), undergoing a periodic assessment every 6 months. According to the results obtained, it was pointed out that once the 6 participants acquired functional communication skills, they all showed significant progress regarding cognitive development. Moreover, it was noted that the acquisition periods in the children’s evolution path could be subjected to both a sudden increase and a ceiling effect.