ABSTRACT
Children who receive a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are said to have characteristic difficulty with transitions. However, testing that informs ASD diagnosis overlooks children’s conduct during transitions between subtasks of the test. In this article, we describe and analyze the sequential organization of such transitions. First, we show that transitions come as an organized series of sequences, which we call the Transitional Activity Series (TAS). We then show how the TAS is a contingent accomplishment with a structure that clinician and child adapt to emergent troubles in co-orientation. Lastly, we analyze how a particular child’s “rigid and repetitive behaviors,” a criterion of ASD diagnosis linked to transitional difficulty, may work to facilitate, rather than upend, transitions between discrete testing tasks. Data in American English.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For another paper in which there is a series consisting of four adjacency-pairs, although in a very different domain, see Schegloff’s (Citation1986) discussion of the four core opening sequences in telephone calls.
2 Co-orientation sequences establish not only shared attention but also a working agreement to become mutually involved in the projected activity. This bears some affinity to Kendrick and Drew’s (Citation2016, p. 2) concept of “recruitment.”
3 See Mehan’s (Citation1974, pp. 106–114) discussion of negotiation between child and teacher in the performance of questions and answers in the classroom.
4 Also consider, for example, Extract 3, where Stephen pursued an independent activity in the interlude between closure and instructions, which presented trouble for co-orientation as Melinda initiated an task-instructional sequence.