Children with autism spectrum disorder often demonstrate difficulty communicating with others, and this may affect the extent to which they can engage in contextually appropriate language during play. This study examined the effects of a social script-training intervention using generic picture cues on the number of contextually appropriate play…

We used a script-fading package to teach children with autism to initiate social interactions across various activities in the school setting, and we programmed for generalization in the untrained home setting with a sibling. The three participants, ages 8 to 10 years, demonstrated deficits in social initiations with their peers. During baseline,…

Observational learning (OL) is critical for the acquisition of social skills and may be an important skill for learning in traditional educational settings. Although OL occurs during early childhood in the typically developing population, research suggests that it may be limited in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The…

The preschool life skills (PLS) program (Hanley, Heal, Tiger, & Ingvarsson, 2007; Luczynski & Hanley, 2013) involves teaching social skills as a means of decreasing and preventing problem behavior. However, achieving durable outcomes as children transition across educational settings depend on the generalization and long-term maintenance…

We evaluated the effects of different intertrial intervals (ITIs; time between programmed learning opportunities) on the acquisition and generalization of 2 preschoolers' social skills. Independent and generalized skills were observed only when the daily ITI was gradually increased from short to progressively longer intervals. (Contains 1 figure…

This study compared social stories and the teaching interaction procedure to teach social skills to 6 children and adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder. Researchers taught 18 social skills with social stories and 18 social skills with the teaching interaction procedure within a parallel treatment design. The teaching interaction procedure…

Four preschool children (with and without disabilities), who often responded inappropriately to questions, participated in the current study. Pretest results were used to create sets of questions that the children either did or did not answer correctly (i.e., known and unknown questions). We then sequentially taught two different responses to a…

Results indicated that socially unskilled, learning disabled children (8 to 10 years old) can be taught to respond appropriately to role-play situations. However, improved performance did not generalize to the natural school setting and treatment did not affect ratings of peer acceptance. (Author)

The effects of a generalization training procedure on requesting by four adult subjects with Broca's aphasia were examined. Results revealed that generalization effects were greatest when trainers, as opposed to unfamiliar volunteers, served as conversational participants. Subjects' requests increased to a level comparable to a normal comparison…

A script fading procedure was effectively used to teach 4 children (ages 9 and 12) with autism to initiate interactions with peers. Increased initiations (to within normal levels) generalized to a different setting, and for three of the children were maintained at two-month follow-up. (Author/DB)

Two children (ages 7-8) with autism and eight typical peers participated in a study designed to replicate an earlier finding of successful social-skills intervention for children with autism using peer-implemented pivotal response training (PRT). The results of using multiple peer trainers on generalization of treatment effects were assessed.…

Three adolescent boys with autism were taught to offer assistance to a person stating inability to complete a task. Generalization of skills in a variety of settings varied across youths, although all three boys showed some transfer of skills to all conditions. (Author/DB)

This response to Chandler et al. (EC 604 147) suggests that generalization of social competence training be viewed from both functional and topographical perspectives which have scientific and practice biases, respectively. The paper proposes a generalization-discrimination continuum along which behaviors may be placed for optimum utility. (DB)

The efficacy of a social-skills-training package in producing stimulus generalization, both with and without the systematic application of generalization programming techniques, was evaluated with five preschool children with hearing impairments. Results found generalization of the social skills did not occur until generalization programming…

Three moderately retarded students were taught to initiate and expand on conversational topics through actual conversations with nonhandicapped peers. Training generalized to natural contexts. Results were socially validated by undergraduates who rated tapes of two of the students' conversations during training phases as more socially competent…