title: A comparison of developmental social-pragmatic and naturalistic behavioral interventions on language use and social engagement in children with autism.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Developmental social-pragmatic and naturalistic behavioral interventions share a number of features, but they differ in their use of facilitative strategies and direct elicitation of child language. In this study, the authors investigated whether these approaches produce different language and social outcomes in young children with autism.
  
  
  METHODS
  The authors used an ABACAD design to compare the effects of a developmental social-pragmatic, naturalistic behavioral, and combined intervention on language type and function and social engagement in 5 children with autism.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Milieu teaching and the combined intervention produced higher rates of language targets than did responsive interaction. An analysis of the type and function of language targets suggested that differences between conditions were driven primarily by prompted-and, to a lesser extent, spontaneous-requests. Social engagement ratings were higher during each intervention than at baseline, but differences between treatment conditions were not consistent across children.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  For children with autism, naturalistic interventions that use direct elicitation of child language lead to greater short-term gains in the use of expressive language targets-in particular, prompted requests-than interventions that use facilitative strategies only. All 3 naturalistic language interventions can promote social engagement. For some children, the combined use of direct elicitation and responsiveness-based strategies may enhance treatment response.
authors.affiliation: Michigan State University, USA.ingers19@msu.edu
authors.forename: Brooke
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ingersoll
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Nicole
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Bonter
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jelinek
mesh_terms: D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D002652:Child Behavior; D002663:Child Language; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003142:Communication; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D007808:Language Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D012919:Social Behavior; D014705:Verbal Behavior