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| Teaching Eye Contact to Children With Autism Through Parent Training Via Telehealth: Using Shaping Without Prompting in Social Play |
| Monday, May 30, 2022 |
| 5:00 PM–5:25 PM |
| Meeting Level 2; Room 254B |
| Area: AUT |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |
| Chair: Dag Strömberg (Stockholm University) |
| CE Instructor: Dag Strömberg, M.S. |
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| Teaching Eye Contact to Children With Autism Through Parent Training Via Telehealth: Using Shaping Without Prompting in Social Play |
| Domain: Applied Research |
| DAG STRÖMBERG (Stockholm University), Smita Awasthi (Behavior Momentum India), Lise Renat Roll-Pettersson (Stockholm University) |
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| Abstract: Deficits in eye contact are a common feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) which has been found to negatively affect learning opportunities. Previous research has shown shaping without prompting to be effective in teaching eye contact to children diagnosed with ASD (Fonger & Malott, 2019). The current collaborative study between Behavioral Momentum, India, and Stockholm University, Sweden, evaluated the effects of a shaping procedure, implemented by parents trained and supervised via telehealth, to teach two preschool-aged children with ASD to make eye contact in naturalistic social play interactions. A multiple baseline design across settings was used. For each child, eye contact was taught in three different child-preferred play settings where the parent was a necessary component. The target behavior, eye contact, was divided into five successive learning phases. Both children acquired eye contact for a duration of 1 to 2 seconds across several settings without direct prompting. Results suggested a high degree of social validity, as measured by the participating parents' self-reports as well as indices of happiness observed in the two children. Furthermore, this study confirms that when cultural aspects are taken into consideration telehealth can be used to train and supervise parents across geographical regions. |
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| Target Audience: Participants should have a working knowledge of the practical application of behavior analysis with clients. Participants can include BCBAs, teachers, psychologists, special education teachers and speech language pathologists. |
| Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the presentation, participants will be able to: (1) Describe why eye contact is a socially significant behavior for children with autism; (2) Describe how shaping can be used to improve eye contact in children with autism; (3) Describe how indices of happiness can be used to measure social validity. |
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