Kuschke, SilvaVinck, Bart M.Geertsema, Salome2016-10-142016-10-142016-07-29Kuschke, S., Vinck, B. & Geertsema, S., 2016, ‘A combined prosodic and linguistic treatment approach for language-communication skills in children with autism spectrum disorders: A proof-of-concept study’, South African Journal of Childhood Education 6(1), a290. http://dx.DOI. org/ 10.4102/sajce.v6i1.290.2223-7674 (print)2223-7682 (online)10.4102/sajce.v6i1.290http://hdl.handle.net/2263/57324S.K. was the main contributing author of this article and submitted the article in partial fulfilment of the degree Master of Communication Pathology. B.V. was the main supervisor of the masters project and S.G. was the co-supervisor of the masters project and edited multiple drafts of the manuscript and subsequent article.This study aimed to determine whether the use of prosodically varied speech within a traditional language therapy framework had any effect on the listening skills, pragmatic skills and social interaction behaviour of three children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A single participant multiple baseline design across behaviours was implemented. Three participants with ASD were selected for this research. The listening skills, pragmatic skills and social interaction behaviour of the participants were compared before treatment, after a 3-week period of treatment and after a 2-week withdrawal period from treatment, utilising prosodically varied speech within a traditional language therapy approach. Statistical significance was not calculated for each individual due to the limited data, but visual inspection indicated that all the participants showed positive behavioural changes in performance across all areas after 3 weeks of treatment, independent of their pre-treatment performance level. The use of prosodically varied speech within a traditional language therapy framework appears to be a viable form of treatment for children with ASD.en© 2016. The Authors. Licensee: AOSIS. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.ChildrenAutism spectrum disorder (ASD)Language-communication skillsListening skillsPragmatic skillsSocial interaction behaviourArticle