Evaluating the Ability of the PBS Children's Show Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood to Teach Skills to Two Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is a children's television show incorporating many elements of video modeling, an intervention that can teach skills to children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). This study evaluated the impact of watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood episodes on the accurate performance of trying new foods and stopping play politely with two five-year-old children with ASD. Both children showed improved performance of skills only following exposure to episodes of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, suggesting that watching episodes can help children with ASD learn specific skills.

Advance Notice for Transition-Related Problem Behavior: Practice Guidelines.

Transitions between daily activities can occasion or elicit problem behavior in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Providing advance notice to signal an upcoming transition is a common practice in early and special education settings (e.g., Riffel 2010; Sandall et al. 2005). While the literature contains many demonstrations of the efficacy of various advance notice procedures, other studies have shown negative results. Practitioners are faced with the challenge of deciding whether advance notice is a viable treatment option for transition-related problem behavior in light of these contradictory findings. To assist the practitioner in this decision-making process, we provide a brief review of the advance notice literature, concentrating on the studies reporting that advance notice is ineffective at reducing transition-related problems. The goal is to provide practitioners with a better understanding of the environmental conditions under which advance notice is likely to be ineffective at decreasing problem behavior as well as the conditions under which it can be effective at reducing transition-related problem behavior. Discriminating these conditions may yield a useful set of practice guidelines for deciding when advance notice is a viable treatment option for decreasing transition-related problem behavior.

Teaching skills related to self-employment to adults with developmental disabilities: an analog analysis.

Employment opportunities for people with developmental disabilities (DD) have improved in the last several decades. There is increasing focus on helping people with DD sample more diverse employment options, including running their own businesses. The present study (1) evaluated the effects of a well-established behavioral teaching procedure on the acquisition of a sample of three broad classes of skills related to self-employment (worker, supervisor, and clerical work) in young adults with DD within an analog recycling business, and (2) investigated the extension of that treatment to the natural environment while working in isolation or in peer pairs. Results suggest that the teaching procedure was effective in teaching three broad classes of skills related to many self-employment possibilities, the skills generalized to the natural environment, and peer pairs supported each other to complete tasks with a high degree of accuracy required to run a recycling business. This study represents an initial demonstration that adults with DD can learn skills required to run their own business.