Difficulties in communication during social interactions are a feature of the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Little is known about the communication abilities of minimally-verbal (MV) individuals, which comprises one-third of autistic individuals. Natural language sampling (NLS) provides an optimal approach to capture communication…

The purpose of this comparative efficacy study was to investigate the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) and a speech-generating device (SGD) in developing requesting skills, social-communicative behavior, and speech for three elementary-age children with severe autism and little to no functional speech. Requesting was selected as the…

Drawing upon video recordings over two years, teacher interviews, school reports, and field notes, this practitioner research study described and analyzed 16 video excerpts from a music therapy group in a public preschool class serving 14 children with autism, for durations ranging from two to sixteen months. The research centered on three of the…

Despite expansive improvements in both treatments and research, the majority of persons with autism use non-empirically supported interventions. One way to decrease the research-to-practice gap involves increasing the direct applicability of research findings to clinical settings. Effectiveness research achieves this goal by identifying treatments…