EFFECTS OF SELF-EVALUATION ON PRESCHOOL CHILDREN'S USE OF SOCIAL INTERACTION STRATEGIES WITH THEIR CLASSMATES WITH AUTISM

This study investigated effects of a self-evaluation procedure on preschool children's use of social interaction strategies among their classmates with autism. Three triads of children (comprised of 1 trained normally developing peer, 1 untrained peer, and 1 child with autism) participated. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used to demonstrate that peers who were taught facilitative strategies increased their use of strategies only after the self-evaluation intervention was introduced. Improvements in social behavior of children with autism was associated with peers' increased strategy use. Untrained peers demonstrated little change in their social behavior. Treatment effects were replicated when trained peers were asked to use self-evaluation with other children with autism during other play times. Self-evaluation procedures enhanced the use of social interaction strategies on the part of normally developing peers during social skills interventions.     

THE EFFECTS OF BEHAVIOR SKILLS TRAINING ON CORRECT TEACHER IMPLEMENTATION OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PARADIGM TEACHING SKILLS AND CHILD BEHAVIOR

Natural Language Paradigm (NLP) is a naturalistic teaching strategy for children with autism that increases immediate and delayed imitative utterances, spontaneous utterances and new words, and production of utterances. NLP includes increasing child choice, varying stimulus items, loose shaping contingencies for communicative attempts, and providing reinforcers with a direct relationship to the response. Only one previous study investigated the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on staff acquisition and generalization of implementation of NLP and child behavior. A BST package of instructions, modeling rehearsal and feedback, was used to train teachers to implement NLP teaching procedures with three pre‐school children with autism spectrum disorder. Training increased correct teacher performance systematically across all three teachers during NLP teaching sessions and with children for whom teachers did not directly receive training. Correct teacher performance increased appropriate child vocalizations and decreased maladaptive behavior for four of six children. BST is effective in quickly training teachers in the generalized implementation of complex NLP teaching procedures across children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ENHANCING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A PLAY INTERVENTION BY ABOLISHING THE REINFORCING VALUE OF STEREOTYPY: A PILOT STUDY

An alternating treatments design compared one condition in which a child with autism was allowed to engage in stereotypy freely prior to the intervention (abolishing operation component) to a second condition without the free‐access period. Levels of stereotypy and problem behavior were lower and levels of functional play were higher in the condition with the abolishing operation component. These data provide preliminary support for the use of abolishing operations in interventions to increase the play skills of children with autism.     

Using intraverbal training to increase symbolic play in children with autism spectrum disorder

We evaluated the effects of an intraverbal training procedure on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of object‐substitution symbolic play in three 6‐year‐old Korean boys with autism spectrum disorder. A multiple probe across four behaviors design was used. All children acquired target symbolic play behavior, and novel responses emerged in training and follow‐up conditions. Generalization of object substitutions to untaught objects occurred in all three children. Free play observations indicated that symbolic play emerged in one child, and functional play increased in all three children.     

Parent‐implemented treatment for automatically maintained stereotypy

Automatically maintained stereotypy is common among children with autism spectrum disorder. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of a multicomponent parent‐implemented intervention on the reduction of motor stereotypy for a child with autism. A 2‐year‐old child and her father participated in this study. The effect of a parent‐implemented intervention was evaluated using an alternating treatment design. The results indicated that the parent‐implemented treatment package including differential reinforcement, response blocking, and a competing stimulus decreased automatically maintained motor stereotypy.     

Teaching spontaneous requests to children with autism using a time delay procedure with multi-component toys

Children with autism were taught spontaneous requests through a time delay procedure. Unlike previous research, which usually employed food as the target stimuli to be requested, the present study used toy pieces from multi-component toys. The procedure involved presenting a child with the target stimulus, with the trainer prompting the child by immediately modeling the request response. When the response was imitated without error, prompting was delayed with the time interval gradually being increased over trials. A spontaneous or imitated response was reinforced by giving the child the requested object. As the stimulus/model interval increased, children with autism were expected to initiate the request by themselves prior to the prompt. The efficacy of the time delay procedure was assessed using a multiple baseline across subject design with three Chinese boys with autism. Results showed that the three children acquired a 100% performance within five to nine sessions of training and the skill was maintained at the one-month and three-month followups. Furthermore, the learned response transferred to various conditions when tested across setting, person, toy, and food items. These results suggest that toys, the multi-component ones in particular, served well as reinforcers for language training. Furthermore these findings confirmed the practical utility of the time delay procedure for promoting spontaneous communication skills in children with autism.     

THE EFFECTS OF DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF UNPROMPTED RESPONDING ON THE SKILL ACQUISITION OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

The recommendation to reserve the most potent reinforcers for unprompted responses during acquisition programming has little published empirical support for its purported benefits (e.g., rapid acquisition, decreased errors, and decreased prompt dependence). The purpose of the current investigation was to compare the delivery of high‐quality reinforcers exclusively following unprompted responses (differential reinforcement) with the delivery of high‐quality reinforcers following both prompted and unprompted responses (nondifferential reinforcement) on the skill acquisition of 2 children with autism. Results indicated that both were effective teaching procedures, although the differential reinforcement procedure was more reliable in producing skill acquisition. These preliminary findings suggest that the differential reinforcement of unprompted responses may be the most appropriate default approach to teaching children with autism.     

TEACHING EARLY READING SKILLS TO CHILDREN WITH AUTISM USING MIMIOSPROUT EARLY READING

A number of studies have demonstrated positive outcomes for typical learners from the internet‐based reading program, MimioSprout® Early Reading (MER). In the present study, a preliminary evaluation of MER was conducted with four children with autism who attended an applied behavior analysis educational program in a school setting. The primary aim was to investigate whether it would be feasible to use MER with children with autism and whether any adaptations to the standard teaching procedure would be needed. A secondary aim was to investigate whether completing MER would improve early reading skills. When additional discrete‐trial table top activities were designed to supplement each child's progress, every child was able to complete all 80 lessons and showed similar correct performance to that reported for typically developing learners. Results from a standardized test of reading ability showed an improvement in word recognition reading age for all children from 14 months to more than three years over the 14 weeks of teaching. A follow‐up test showed that gains were maintained eight weeks after the end of the intervention. MER can be successfully used with children with autism and can improve their early reading skills. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

THE DISCRIMINATION OF OBJECT NAMES AND OBJECT SOUNDS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM: A PROCEDURE FOR TEACHING VERBAL COMPREHENSION

We assessed whether 2 preschoolers with autism learned to discriminate between the sounds of musical instruments more rapidly than the spoken names of the instruments. After the children learned the sound‐object relations more rapidly than the name‐object relations, we then evaluated a prompt‐delay procedure for transferring stimulus control from the sounds to the names of the instruments. The prompt‐delay procedure facilitated the acquisition of name—object relations for both children.     

Children with autism can track others' beliefs in a competitive game

Theory of mind (ToM) development, assessed via ‘litmus’ false belief tests, is severely delayed in autism, but the standard testing procedure may underestimate these children's genuine understanding. To explore this, we developed a novel test involving competition to win a reward as the motive for tracking other players' beliefs (the ‘Dot‐Midge task’). Ninety‐six children, including 23 with autism (mean age: 10.36 years), 50 typically developing 4‐year‐olds (mean age: 4.40) and 23 typically developing 3‐year‐olds (mean age: 3.59) took a standard ‘Sally‐Ann’ false belief test, the Dot‐Midge task (which was closely matched to the Sally‐Ann task procedure) and a norm‐referenced verbal ability test. Results revealed that, of the children with autism, 74% passed the Dot‐Midge task, yet only 13% passed the standard Sally‐Ann procedure. A similar pattern of performance was observed in the older, but not the younger, typically developing control groups. This finding demonstrates that many children with autism who fail motivationally barren standard false belief tests can spontaneously use ToM to track their social partners’ beliefs in the context of a competitive game.     

Teaching children with autism to request help with difficult tasks

We taught three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder to request help using an interrupted chain procedure during which we manipulated task materials such that the child was either incapable or capable of independently completing a link of a behavior chain. We initially observed undesirable generalization of requests for help during capable trials when teaching was introduced during incapable trials for two participants and to a lesser extent for the third participant. However, with repeated exposure to differential prompting and reinforcement across incapable and capable trials, differential responding was observed across EO‐present and EO‐absent trials for all three participants during both teaching sets and one generalization set that was never exposed to teaching procedures. These findings suggest that it is important to consider the antecedent conditions under which the response should occur when teaching children to request help.     

Quantifying Supervisory Decision Making: Eye‐Tracking Technology Applications for the Promotion of Child Safety

Previous research has investigated various risk factors correlated with childhood injury, but few studies have successfully investigated these variables beyond participant self‐report. The present study utilized infrared eye‐tracking and computer‐based latency measures to evaluate caregiver supervision decisions in injury risk situations for typically developing children and children with autism spectrum disorder. The sample included 99 young women, ages 18–24 years, who are frequent non‐parental caregivers for children. Results indicated that participants altered their speed of response, child monitoring, and intervention decisions on the basis of idiosyncratic assessment of injury risk. Minimal significant differences emerged with regard to supervision behavior and chosen strategies when comparing children with autism spectrum disorder to typically developing children. Overall, results suggest that non‐parental caregivers integrate child characteristics and environmental risk factors when assessing risk and choosing interventions. Implications are discussed with regard to injury prevention programs emphasizing protective aspects of supervision for children across various settings. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Effects of Presession Pairing on the Challenging Behavior and Academic Responding of Children with Autism

Presession pairing is an antecedent‐based procedure in which an instructor engages with preferred items with a child for a few minutes before an instructional session. Although this procedure has been described in manualized treatment guidelines for working with children with autism, there are currently no direct investigations of whether this manipulation has a beneficial impact on target responding or the child's social interactions. Functional analyses with three children with autism showed escape or attention and escape as reinforcers for their challenging behavior. Preference assessments identified highly and moderately preferred stimuli. In the context of a multiple baseline across participants design, the participants exhibited fewer challenging behaviors when instructional sessions were preceded by presession pairing than when they were not. Academic responding showed modest increases. Subsequently, in the presence of presession pairing with a novel task, the participants emitted no challenging behavior and similar or higher levels of accurate academic responding. One participant was available for a maintenance session without presession pairing 5 months later and showed near‐zero levels of challenging behavior and comparable levels of accurate academic responding. The implications of the findings and future directions are discussed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using the teaching interaction procedure to train interventionists to implement the Cool versus Not CoolTM procedure

The teaching interaction procedure is a behavior analytic procedure that has been used to target the development of social skills. The teaching interaction procedure consists of labeling the target skill, providing a meaningful rationale, describing the steps of the target skill, modeling the skill, role‐play, and providing feedback throughout the interaction. Although the teaching interaction procedure has been used to teach a variety of social skills for individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), it has only been used to train staff in two studies. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of the teaching interaction procedure to teach three interventionists to implement the Cool versus Not Cool? procedure to target the development of social skills for children diagnosed with ASD. The results of a multiple baseline design demonstrated that the teaching interaction procedure was effective for all three interventionists. Results of the child participants' skill acquisition are also provided.     

Decreasing Echolalia of the Instruction “Say” During Echoic Training Through Use of the Cues-Pause-Point Procedure

Echolalia is common in children with autism and may interfere with the development of functional language. Given the variety of vocal stimuli included in teaching language to children with autism, it is possible that discrimination between instructions and targeted responses may not always occur. Thus, children may engage in very high rates of echolalia during language training because it is unclear which vocalizations produced by an instructor should be echoed. The cues-pause-point (CPP) procedure has been effective in decreasing echolalia and increasing specific correct responses to unknown questions in adults with intellectual disability. The current investigation applied the CPP procedure to the echoic repertoire with 1 child with autism who consistently echoed the instruction “say” during language training. Results indicated that echolalia of the instruction “say” decreased, and correct responding of the targeted vocalization increased for all targeted words. Implications for the use of the procedure in educational settings are discussed, and areas for future research are provided.     

“Being‐Imitated” Strategy at Home‐Based Intervention for Young Children with Autism

Previous studies have consistently shown that simply imitating children with autism will help to promote amount of gaze and to decrease distance to others. However, whether the “being‐imitated” strategy also affects the development of social cognition has not been clarified. We conducted a 2‐month researcher‐guided and home‐based intervention. Mothers were randomly assigned to two groups: One group was coached to engage the child using imitation, and the other was coached simply to respond contingently to bids. Before and after the 2‐month intervention, imitation skills, understanding the intentions of others’ acts, and gaze toward mothers were measured. Two months of being‐imitated enables the children to raise the general amount of their gaze interaction. The imitation skills also were promoted. On the other hand, the development of understanding others’ intentions was not observed, irrespective of condition. The increase of attention to others, which is facilitated by the accumulation of the being‐imitated experiences, can be generalized to the nonimitating person and results in the imitation of others by the child. Alternatively, the developmental linkages between the being‐imitated strategy and understanding of others’ intentions should be an important research task. The present study also indicates that caretakers can play a significant role in the intervention for a child with autism.     

Teaching conversational speech to children with autism spectrum disorder using text‐message prompting

The present study was designed to teach conversational speech using text‐message prompts to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in home play settings with siblings and peers. A multiple baseline design across children was used. Children learned conversational speech through the text‐message prompts, and the behavior generalized across peers and settings. Maintenance of treatment gains was seen at 1‐month follow‐up probes. Social validity measures indicated that parents of typically developing children viewed the participants' conversational speech as much improved after the intervention. Results are discussed in terms of the efficacy of text‐message prompts as a promising way to improve conversational speech for children with ASD.     

The effects of token reinforcement on attending in a young child with autism

The benefits of token economies have been widely established, however there are very few empirical studies on the effects of token reinforcement on the behavior of young children with autism. The establishment of conditioned reinforcers such as tokens may be important in interventions for children with autism. Token reinforcement was used to increase the attending behavior of a young child with autism during discrete trials instruction for academic and communication skills. A reversal design showed that token reinforcement sustained attending only when the back‐up reinforcer was available and was accessed immediately. The results extend and corroborate findings on token reinforcement reported in other applied settings and are also consistent with findings from basic research on conditioned reinforcement. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Caregiver‐mediated joint attention intervention

Joint attention is a pivotal social communication skill often absent or impaired in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Joint attention is the shared and alternating attention of two individuals on an object or event, and has implications for later communication and social communication skills. This study used a concurrent multiple‐baseline design across 3 caregiver–child dyads to train caregivers to teach response to joint attention behaviors to their 3–6 years old children with moderate to severe autism spectrum disorder. Caregivers were trained on strategies including prompting, time delay, and elements of naturalistic teaching and implemented the intervention in brief 10‐min sessions 2–3 times per week. Results indicate parent mastery of intervention and substantial increase in child response to joint attention behaviors both prompted and independent. Implications for practice and areas for future research are discussed.