ABSTRACT
Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties obtaining and maintaining employment, yet little research has evaluated methods for assessing and improving critical vocational skills. In this study, we evaluated an assessment of job-related social skills for individuals with ASD by arranging conditions that simulated on-the-job experiences in a clinic setting. The experimenter contrived situations to assess a variety of social skills, including asking for help, asking for more materials, and responding to corrective feedback. A total of eight individuals, aged 16 to 32 years, participated. Results suggested that the assessment was useful for identifying specific social skills that could be targeted for intervention to increase success in the work environment. These findings add to the current literature by demonstrating an objective method for assessing a variety of job-related social skills under controlled, naturalistic conditions.
ABSTRACT
Research has identified a variety of effective approaches for responding to errors during discrete-trial training. In one commonly used method, the therapist delivers a prompt contingent on the occurrence of an incorrect response and then re-presents the trial so that the learner has an opportunity to perform the correct response independently. Some authors recommend inserting trials with previously mastered targets between the prompted response and opportunities to respond independently, but no studies have directly examined the benefits of this approach. In this study, we manipulated the placement of trials with mastered targets during discrete-trial training to compare the effectiveness of error correction with and without this recommended insertion procedure. Four children with autism participated, and each was taught 18 targets across 3 target sets. Results indicated that embedding trials with mastered targets into error correction may not confer benefits for most children and that doing so may lead to less efficient instruction.
Subject(s)
Attention/physiology , Autistic Disorder/rehabilitation , Behavior Therapy/methods , Learning/physiology , Teaching , Child , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Male , Reinforcement, PsychologyABSTRACT
Previous research has shown that providing choices may result in an increase in appropriate behavior and a decrease in inappropriate behavior; however, the process by which choice results in a behavior change is unknown. In the current study, we replicated and extended previous research by determining the prevalence of preference for choice in a large number of children and evaluating whether a history of differential outcomes associated with choice and no choice resulted in changes in preference for those conditions. Results from Study 1 showed that the majority of participants preferred choice contexts when child choice and experimenter choice resulted in identical outcomes. In Study 2, participants' preferences were altered when child choice and experimenter choice resulted in differential outcomes, but a history with differential outcomes did not produce a reliable and durable effect on selections.
