Difficulties with social conversation can be a direct result of the social skills deficit in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The popularity of hand-held devices and the development of commercial apps has expanded the scope of teaching social skills via this modality. This study extends an earlier pilot study in which a…

A substantial number of multicomponent interventions have been developed to address social functioning in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For multicomponent interventions, identifying critical elements of the intervention related to behavior change is critical and may potentially improve the social validity of interventions. Such…

Many researchers and practitioners cite concerns with maintenance and generalization as a serious issue for individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), although few studies explicitly target performance of behaviors outside training environments. After an initial intervention failed to produce robust generalization outcomes, the present…

Research Findings: Emotion regulation is a strong predictor of both short- and long-term peer relationships and social competence and is often targeted in preschool curricula and interventions. Pretense is a natural activity of childhood that is thought to facilitate the development of socialization, perspective taking, language, and possibly…

In typical development, children learn an extensive range of idioms and other figurative (non-literal) language expressions during childhood and adolescence. However, many children with autism fall far behind in their idiom comprehension and production and never fully reach adult levels. The current study measured the effectiveness of a group…

The purpose of this study was to examine the risk and protective factors of peer victimization among young children with disabilities. This study analyzed data from the Pre-Elementary Education Longitudinal Study (n =1,130) to test a path model that included child, family, and school characteristics at Year 1 and peer-relation difficulties and…

The majority of early education programs promote children's learning through a mix of experiences in child- and teacher-managed contexts. The current study examined time spent in child- and teacher-managed contexts and the nature of children's experiences with teachers in these contexts as they relate to children's skill development. Participants…

This article presents a reanalysis of a previously reported study on the impact of the Tomatis Method of auditory stimulation on subjects with autism. When analyzed as individual case studies, the data showed that six of the 11 subjects with autism demonstrated significant improvement from 90 hours of Tomatis Therapy. Five subjects did not benefit…

The Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES), sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), was first launched in 1997 as a periodic longitudinal study of program performance. This report is the fourth in a series that uses data from the FACES 2006 cohort to describe…