Teaching spontaneous responses to young children with autism.
Using a multiple probe design across responses, we demonstrated the effectiveness of intensive intervention in establishing spontaneous verbal responses to 2 3-year-old children with autism with generalization to novel settings involving novel persons. Intervention involved discrete-trial instruction (i.e., repeated instructional opportunities presented in close proximity to high rates of reinforcement), specific prompts, and error correction. Spontaneous responses were defined as specific verbal utterances (e.g., the child says "bless you") following discriminative stimuli that did not involve explicit vocal directives (e.g., adult sneeze). The development of effective interventions to address the social-communicative needs of very young children with autism is discussed.
Jones
Emily A
EA
Department of Psychology, C. W. Post Campus of Long Island University, Brookville, New York 11548, USA. emily.jones@liu.edu
Feeley
Kathleen M
KM
Takacs
Jennifer
J
D001321:Autistic Disorder; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D014705:Verbal Behavior