Effects of time delay and requiring echoics on answering questions about visual stimuli.

An important communication skill for children with autism is answering multiple questions about visual stimuli (e.g., "What is it?" "What color is it?"). We targeted answering "What number?" and "What shape?" in the presence of numbers inside shapes, and "What is it?" and "What color?" in the presence of colored objects (e.g., a yellow cat) with 3 preschoolers with autism. In addition to a progressive time delay, we required the participants to answer the questions by echoing a keyword from the questions. For example, we taught them to answer, "What color?" with "color blue." In the context of a multiple-probe design across behaviors within a multiple-probe design across participants, the procedure was effective in increasing trained responses and producing within- and across-category generalization. The echoic may have facilitated the responses by increasing the salience of the auditory stimuli and strengthening intraverbals within autoclitic frames.

Coping strategies in mothers and fathers of preschool and school-age children with autism.

Despite the theoretical and demonstrated empirical significance of parental coping strategies for the wellbeing of families of children with disabilities, relatively little research has focused explicitly on coping in mothers and fathers of children with autism. In the present study, 89 parents of preschool children and 46 parents of school-age children completed a measure of the strategies they used to cope with the stresses of raising their child with autism. Factor analysis revealed four reliable coping dimensions: active avoidance coping, problem-focused coping, positive coping, and religious/denial coping. Further data analysis suggested gender differences on the first two of these dimensions but no reliable evidence that parental coping varied with the age of the child with autism. Associations were also found between coping strategies and parental stress and mental health. Practical implications are considered including reducing reliance on avoidance coping and increasing the use of positive coping strategies.