Newsletter
Volume 31 | 2008 | Number 3
Teaching the Social Dance: Using Script-Fading Procedures to Promote Conversation
By Dr. Patricia Krantz, Princeton Child Development Institute
In their book The Social World of Children Learning to Talk (1999), Hart and Risley described conversation as a social dance…
that involves not just talking but also speaking and listening in partnership with another person ...Children who become adept as social partners and really enjoy conversing are likely to be invited to dance by other people (p. 194). The hard part is learning how to dance, how to regulate actions so that they correspond to the actions of a partner. Once children have learned how to dance, they can be freed to do what children seem to have been designed to do: explore and elaborate...so that they can advance...from ritual greetings to repartee (p. 199).
Scripts and script-fading procedures teach children with autism the social dance. Research on these procedures demonstrates how to teach the basic two-step and proceeds from there to the development of a platform for learning to tango. During the past fifteen years, investigators have used script-fading procedures to increase the social interaction of preschoolers with autism (Krantz & McClannahan, 1998), to promote peer conversation (Krantz & McClannahan, 1993), to enable severely language disabled children to converse with a familiar adult (Stevenson, Krantz, & McClannahan, 2000), to teach young children to make bids for joint attention (MacDuff, Ledo, Krantz, & McClannahan, 2007), and to shift stimulus control of conversation from adults’ verbal prompts to relevant features of the environment (Brown, Krantz, McClannahan, & Poulson, in press, and Sarokoff, Taylor, & Poulson, 2001).
It is important to note that script-fading procedures are not procedures for teaching children to speak, but procedures for teaching them to interact—to engage in the give-and-take of conversation. Many parents and teachers know from experience that teaching children with autism to talk is no guarantee that they will engage in conversation. Youngsters who have acquired extensive spoken vocabularies and who have mastered the uses of adjectives and prepositions may never talk to parents about the events of the school day or initiate conversation with teachers about home activities. The goal of using scripts and script fading is to help children with autism learn to do more than say what adults prompt them to say; the goal is to teach them to engage in real conversation.
A script is an audiotaped or written word, phrase, or sentence. The audiotaped word “up” could be a script for a toddler; audiotaped sentences such as “I like trucks” and “Fire trucks are red” could be scripts for a preschooler with more language. A ten-year-old might read the typed scripts “I go swimming on Thursdays” and “Jan is my swimming teacher.” The written script “I’m learning to shave” might be appropriate for a teenager, and an adult who has not acquired reading skills could use the audiotaped script “I work at a hotel.”
Scripts and script-fading procedures are useful to students who are more- and less-severely disabled, and to readers and nonreaders. Some important characteristics of scripts are that they can (and should) be individualized to take into account each young person’s current language skills, his or her special interests, and the favorite conversation topics and special pursuits of family members and peers.
After a young person learns to imitate audiotaped scripts or to read written scripts, the scripts are faded by removing the last word, then the next-to-last word, and so on, until there are no words remaining. When faded, the audiotaped script “I like trucks” becomes “I like,” then “I,” and then a blank audiotape that has been erased. The written script “I’m learning to shave” is faded to “I’m learning to,” “I’m learning,” “I’m,” and then a blank piece of paper. And eventually, the blank audiotape or blank piece of paper is also removed. At each step in the fading process, it is important to observe whether a child or teen continues to say the script or uses words that have not yet been faded to create a new phrase or sentence. For example, when the script “I like trucks” is faded to “I like,” some children continue to say “I like trucks,” but others may produce new statements, such as “I like cars” or even “I like donuts.”
After many scripts have been presented and faded, most children do one or more of the following: (a) they continue to say the scripts, although the scripts are absent; (b) they combine parts of the scripts with other scripts, or with language that was modeled by their conversation partners, thereby producing novel statements; or (c) they display generative language by saying things that were neither scripted nor modeled by their current conversation partners, but that were previously learned, either via formal instruction or by observing others’ conversation.
For children who are non-readers, scripts can be audiotaped on cards and played on magnetic card readers. A child places a card in a slot on the card reader and the card automatically runs through the machine to play the previously recorded script. Scripts may also be presented on small, button-activated recorders such as those used in toys.
For children who are readers, scripts are selected on the basis of each youngster’s reading skills. As a child’s reading repertoire expands, scripts are gradually lengthened from a one-word script such as “ball” to phrases and sentences.
Initially, when children begin to use scripts, it is useful to enlist the help of two adults. One adult serves as prompter and the other as conversation partner. It is important to separate these roles because in typical social interaction, conversation partners do not verbally prompt one another. Often, the two-to-one adult-child ratio is quite temporary; many children soon learn the relevant responses without the help of a prompter.
When teaching first audiotaped scripts to non-readers, materials such as activity schedule and magnetic card reader are placed within the child’s easy reach and the conversation partner is in close proximity. The adult who is the prompter stands behind the youngster and uses manual guidance to help him open his activity schedule or turn a page, remove an audio card and an attached photograph from his activity schedule, turn to the card reader, and run the card through the machine to play the audiotaped script. Manual prompts to the child’s shoulders are used to guide him to approach and orient toward the conversation partner.
Prompters not only use manual guidance, but also deliver rewards from behind the child. Initially, correct responses are rewarded even if they are prompted; later, only correct, unprompted behavior is followed by rewards. Prompters should be as “invisible” as possible, because they are not participants in conversation.
As a youngster displays increasing competence, the adult begins to fade manual prompts by using graduated guidance and when children complete all of the component tasks with minimal guidance, the prompter uses spatial fading. But if an error occurs, the adult returns to the previous prompting procedure until the child makes several correct responses. Spatial fading is followed by shadowing and when the adult shadows and the youngster makes no errors, it is time to decrease proximity.
This most-to-least prompt-fading sequence enables a child to initiate social interaction by obtaining an audio card, running it through a card reader to play an audiotaped script, and then approaching and orienting toward a recipient of conversation and imitating a script. But if the learner makes an error, the adult immediately returns to the prior prompting procedure. This helps to prevent additional errors and increases the likelihood that the child will receive rewards for her next responses.
Adult conversation partners model language that is at, or only slightly above the learner’s language level, and that (one hopes) is of interest to the child. Initial scripts are based almost exclusively on children’s observed preferences for various activities and materials, and these early scripts enable children to gain immediate access to preferred items or events; that is, the scripts function as mands, because this helps to make social interaction rewarding. The adult conversation partner does not give instructions or ask questions, because this quickly transforms the interaction from a conversation to a discrete-trial training session, with associated problems of prompt dependence. And although it’s helpful to praise frequently during discrete-trial teaching, behavior-specific praise (“Good talking” or “Good, you looked”) isn’t representative of typical conversation.
Being a good conversation partner isn’t as easy as one might imagine, but adults have as many opportunities to practice as the youngsters who are learning to use scripts. After some experience with the role of conversation partner, many parents and instructors perform it flawlessly, and the result is that children gradually learn to hold up their end of the conversation.
Script fading has enabled young people with autism to converse with their parents, teachers, and peers and to interact about academic, home-living, and community activities. After many scripts have been learned and faded, children often stop saying the scripts. Instead, they combine parts of the scripts with language modeled by their conversation partners; or they combine parts of the scripts with language they learned in other contexts; or they combine parts of certain scripts with parts of other scripts, or they say things we didn’t teach and that we didn’t know they had learned.
References
- Brown, J. L., Krantz, P. J., McClannahan, L. E., & Poulson, C. L. (in press). Script fading as a procedure for teaching unscripted language to children with autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
- Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1999). The social world of children learning to talk (p. 194, p. 199). Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.
- Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (1993). Teaching children with autism to initiate to peers: Effects of a script-fading procedure. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 26, 121-132.
- Krantz,, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (1998). Social interaction skills for children with autism: A script-fading procedure for beginning readers. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 31, 191-202.
- MacDuff, J. L., Ledo, R., McClannahan, L. E., & Krantz, P. J. (2007). Using scripts and script-fading procedures to promote bids for joint attention by young children with autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 1,281-290.
- Sarokoff, R. A., Taylor, B. A. & Poulson, C. L. (2001). Teaching children with autism to engage in conversational exchanges: Script fading with embedded textual stimuli. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 34, 81-84.
- Stevenson, C. L., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (2000). Social interaction skills for children with autism: A script-fading procedure for nonreaders. BehavioralInterventions, 15, 1-20.