• Alireza Mollazadeh

  Author

• Simin Bemana

  Author

• Nasrin Shokrpour

  Author

Objective: The purpose of this research is to study the relationship between the non-verbal
motion imitation and the length of utterance in the autistic children and the effects of the length
of utterance in these children.
Material and method: In the first stage of this study, 22 autistic and 30 healthy children
participated; the study was done on the available samples. In this stage, the length of utterance of
the two groups was compared. In the second stage, the random and interventional study was
done, the autistic children were categorized into two experimental and control groups. Then,
those in the experimental group underwent non-verbal imitation exercise one hour a day for 60
days before and after the intervention. The length of the utterance was examined by the picture
description test in the two groups. Independent T-test, regression and analysis of covariance
were used to analyze the data.
Results: A significant difference was revealed in the length of utterance in the healthy and
autistic children.(p≤0/01) The results showed that also there was a positive correlation between
the length of the utterance and the verbal imitation ability in the autistic children under the study
(r=0.884). In addition, data showed that there was a significant difference between the length of
the utterance of the two experimental and control groups after the intervention. (P≤0.01)
Conclusion: There was a strong and positive correlation between the length of the utterance and
non-verbal motion imitation in autistic children. It was concluded that doing non-verbal motion
imitation exercises will increase the length of utterance in these children.

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