Evaluating the Effects of Similar and Distinct Discriminative Stimuli During Auditory Conditional Discrimination Training With Children With Autism.

Children with autism are often taught auditory conditional discriminations in the form of personal information questions that might prove useful in conversation (e.g., "What is your favorite food?" "Pizza" and "What is your favorite color?" "Purple"). In these questions, the auditory stimuli presented as part of the compound discriminative stimulus (i.e., what, favorite, color/food) do not always simultaneously control responding. If all components of the auditory stimulus do not control responding, a child may master 1 target but have trouble acquiring subsequent targets that have a component of a previously learned auditory stimulus because the previously learned response is emitted. One way to avoid this problem is to teach many targets that have no overlapping component stimuli before introducing targets that include a previously learned component. Another way to avoid the problem is to systematically introduce overlapping stimulus components simultaneously to facilitate control by all relevant components. Three children with autism were taught auditory conditional discriminations. An adapted alternating-treatments design was used to compare the use of training sets with programmed overlap of component auditory stimuli to training sets with no overlap of stimulus components. The effects of these 2 arrangements were evaluated on trials to criterion and percentage accuracy during acquisition. All participants reached mastery faster with at least 1 target set in the nonoverlap condition compared to the overlapping condition; 2 out of the 3 participants met the mastery criteria for both overlapping and nonoverlapping targets at a similar rate by the 3rd training set.

Using Portable Video Modeling Technology to Increase the Compliment Behaviors of Children with Autism During Athletic Group Play.

A multiple baseline design across participants was used to examine the effects of a portable video modeling intervention delivered in the natural environment on the verbal compliments and compliment gestures demonstrated by five children with autism. Participants were observed playing kickball with peers and adults. In baseline, participants demonstrated few compliment behaviors. During intervention, an iPad(®) was used to implement the video modeling treatment during the course of the athletic game. Viewing the video rapidly increased the verbal compliments participants gave to peers. Participants also demonstrated more response variation after watching the videos. Some generalization to an untrained activity occurred and compliment gestures also occurred. Results are discussed in terms of contributions to the literature.

Increasing the athletic group play of children with autism.

A multiple baseline design across three children with autism and within child across activity was used to assess the effects of interventions designed to teach children with autism to play two common athletic group games, handball and 4-square. Treatment consisted of two phases. In Phase I, athletic skills training, the children participated in sessions designed facilitate their acquisition of the athletic skills required by the targeted games. During Phase II, rules training, the children were instructed on the rules of the targeted games. Mastering the athletic skills and participating in rules training resulted in increased athletic group play and concomitant increases in speech. These gains were maintained at 8-16 weeks follow-up. However, generalization to participation in school recess activities did not occur.