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| Behavioral-Cognitive Approaches to Promote Social Interaction |
| Tuesday, June 1, 2004 |
| 12:00 PM–1:20 PM |
| Back Bay C |
| Area: AUT |
| Chair: Emily A. Jones (Southampton College) |
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| Joint Attention Intervention for Children with Autism |
| Domain: Applied Research |
| EMILY A. JONES (Southampton College), Edward Carr (SUNY, Stony Brook), Kathleen Feeley (Southampton College) |
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| Abstract: Joint attention is an early developing social-communicative behavior that is specifically impaired in children with autism. It involves two people using their gaze direction and conventional gestures to interact about interesting objects or events in their environment. Joint attention plays an important role in social and language development as well as in understanding the fundamental pathology of autism. This study was conducted (1) to evaluate the efficacy of an intervention program teaching joint attention to young children with autism, (2) to extend joint attention skills within the context of the child's family and other natural settings, and (3) to examine collateral changes associated with joint attention instruction. A multiple baseline design across two joint attention skills was used to examine the use of discrete trial instruction and specific behavioral strategies to teach the forms of joint attention as well as establish the social function of joint attention. Five children with autism acquired two joint attention skills. Response reliabilities ranged from 81-99% and procedural reliabilities ranged from 94-100%. Two of those five children also participated in the extension of joint attention to interactions with their parents in natural settings. After intervention, children showed collateral improvements in social-communicative characteristics, increases in the frequency and variety of spontaneous language, and were judged to look more like their typically developing peers. |
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| The Effects of Theory-of-Mind and Social Skills Training Program on Social Interaction for 5th-grade Students with Autism |
| Domain: Applied Research |
| HUA FENG (B.F. Skinner Foundation for Taiwan), Shu-ling Tsai (B.F. Skinner Foundation for Taiwan) |
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| Abstract: The study was to investigate the social interactive behaviors as well as the changes of theory-of-mind test on a high-functioning child with autism. The subject was an eleven-year old high-functioning child with autism in a regular classroom with resource programs in an elementary school in Taipei City. The study proceeded in the way of taking multiple probe design across behaviors & settings of single-subject experimental design. The independent variable of this study was theory-of-mind and social-skill teaching program. The dependent variables were the percentage of learning outcomes, changes in social interactive behaviors, scores gains in the ability of theory-of-mind test, and the questionnaires and interview for social validity. The consequences of the study were as follows:
1. Theory-of-mind and social-skill teaching program had made great improvements on the target behaviors for the high-functioning child with autism across individual and small-group teaching settings. The target behaviors included: first-order stage of theory-of-mind, emotional expressive skills, second-order stage of theory-of-mind, and conversational skills.
2. With the qualitative analysis, the frequency of three major positive social behaviors (e.g., emotional expression skills, talking interaction skills, and predicting for other people’s thoughts) was improved after applying the theory-of-mind and social-skill teaching program. The frequency of negative social behaviors obviously decreased, too.
3. The results of Theory-of-Mind test have showed great improvement from the pre-test of 22 to the pos-test of 36.
4. The results of the interview showed that the teachers, mother, and his peers made positive evaluation on the objectives, teaching process, and the outcomes of theory-of-mind and social-skill teaching program. |
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| Teaching Adolescent Students to Respect Social Boundaries |
| Domain: Applied Research |
| ELIZABETH MARTINEAU (Nashoba Learning Group), Alysun Stephens (Nashoba Learning Group) |
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| Abstract: Verbal adolescents with Autism frequently engage in physical and verbal behavior that alienates their typical peers. These behaviors, such as: making remarks that peers consider offensive; touching others; standing too close; and gazing at others inappropriately, can create a barrier to successful inclusion activities. Systematically training students to understand and respect verbal, physical and eye gaze boundaries can increase opportunities for successful inclusion and enhance the student's quality of life. A multi-component intervention consisting of: teaching rules, identifying examples of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, practicing appropriate behavior, video modelling, role play, and linkage to the student's reinforcement system has been effective in teaching students at Nashoba Learning Group to respect social boundaries and engage appropriately with peers. The components of the intervention and data demonstrating baseline and the impact of the intervention on the behavior of several students will be presented and discussed. |
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