title: Promoting interaction during sociodramatic play: teaching scripts to typical preschoolers and classmates with disabilities.
abstract: We investigated the effects of teaching sociodramatic scripts on subsequent interaction among three triads, each containing 2 typical children and 1 child with autistic characteristics. The same type and rate of teacher prompts were implemented throughout structured play observations to avoid the confounding effects of script training and teacher prompting. After learning the scripts, all children demonstrated more frequent theme-related social behavior. These improvements in social-communicative interaction were replicated with the training of three sociodramatic scripts (i.e., pet shop, carnival, magic show) according to a multiple baseline design. These effects were maintained during the training of successive scripts and when the triads were reconstituted to include new but similarly trained partners. Results provided support for the inclusion of systematic training of scripts to enhance interaction among children with and without disabilities during sociodramatic play.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15217.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.forename: C L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Cisar
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000193:education* / Q000523:psychology; D004519:Education, Special / Q000379:methods*; D005201:Fantasy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy; D008297:Male; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D010988:Play and Playthings; D011610:Psychosocial Deprivation; D012381:Role Playing; D012919:Social Behavior; D014705:Verbal Behavior