Association for Behavior Analysis International

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have trouble establishing and maintaining relationships, do not engage in appropriate play with their peers, and show key deficits in conversational speech. This symposium seeks to address these problems by presenting three studies that use interventions to increase social and play skills with children with ASD. The first study implemented a manualized social-play intervention and evaluated student social and play skill outcomes. The second study taught children with ASD a socially appropriate method to ensure their own preferences were respected while playing with a peer. The third study implemented a multiple-baseline design across dyads of children with ASD to assess the potential of using scripts, presented through text messages, on the conversational speech between eight participants with ASD during free play. All three studies for this symposium have important implications for increasing social and play skills with children with ASD.

Board Certified Behavior Analysts

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often have trouble establishing and maintaining relationships. This difficulty is intensified by the restricted interests and repetitive behaviors which are typically present within this population. These difficulties are often exhibited during play with their peers. Research supports teaching several skills necessary to play with peers, including assessing and responding to a peer’s preference. However, children with ASD are generally not taught to negotiate with a peer during play to ensure both play partners’ preferences are honored. The purpose of this the current study is to provide children with ASD a socially appropriate method to ensure their own preferences are respected while playing with a peer. The intervention included a behavioral skill training package to teach children with ASD to first identify toys which are preferred and non-preferred by the peer with whom they are playing. Following mastery of this skill, we teach children to negotiate for their own play preference while considering their peer’s play preferences using a first then statement. For example, “if we first play with (peer’s preferred toy) then can we play with (child with ASD’s preferred toy)?”. Generalization will be assessed with a novel peer.

A multiple baseline design across participants (parent/child dyads) was used to evaluate the effectiveness of a collaborative parent training program in teaching parents to implement a script program to teach their children with ASD to engage in a reciprocal conversation at home. A script training program was designed with parents and experimenter creating appropriate home themed scripts for parents to later us. Several versions of scripts (multiple exemplars) were created (Scripts A,B,C) for each parent-child dyad. Once all baseline probes across all scripts and all settings (home and generalization settings) were taken, the script program was implemented in the home by the parents. Parents demonstrated quick acquisition of the script procedures and all child participants learned the scripts. Five out of six children generalized the skill across conversational topic to an untrained topic.