This study effectively eliminated face-slapping behavior in a 10-year-old boy with severe developmental disability and autistic characteristics. The subject wore wrist weights for up to 30 minutes each day. Face slapping did not occur during a follow-up check conducted five months after study completion. (Author/DB)

Use of a token economy to encourage self-management and spontaneous sharing behaviors by three preschool boys with autism was effective in increasing the frequency of sharing behaviors. However, the accuracy of the self-management component was not high, suggesting that the contingent relationship between token and response may not have been the…

Opportunities for teaching a young child with autism to request more play were created at multiple points on the playground by momentarily interrupting the child's ongoing play using the behavior chain interruption strategy. The intervention resulted in high rates of correct requesting which were maintained with a new teacher and generalized to a…

A study of three children with autism investigated the effectiveness of a Japanese-based method called "Daily Life Therapy" used at the Boston Higashi School in Massachusetts. Over a two-year period, the students made strong gains in behavior and attending to classroom stimuli, but not necessarily in specific skill areas. (CR)

Begins with a review of research on learning style differences associated with autism, then examines instructional strategies of both behavioral and incidental teaching methods. Using an illustrative case study, it describes how visually cued instruction can be applied with autistic children who are visual learners. (DB)

A study examined the effects of a self-management program used to reduce high rates of inappropriate vocalizations (e.g., humming, tongue clucking, perseveration, and echolalic words/phases) in a 12-year-old girl with autism. When self-management was applied to inappropriate vocalizations during leisure, prevocational, and reading tasks, the…

Traces a school social worker's development of an in-class intervention for reducing self-stimulating and self-injurious behaviors that interfered with the school functioning of an adolescent with autism. The study provides a model for innovative school social work practice. (JPS)

Discusses intervention and treatment options being used with the population of children and youth who have autism spectrum disorders. The discussion includes interventions based on relationship formation (including holding therapy, gentle teaching, options, and floor time), skill-based treatments, physiologically oriented intervention, and…

Thirty-eight children with autism were given movement therapy in small groups led by a trained movement therapist. After two months of biweekly sessions, the children spent less time wandering, more time showing on-task behavior, less time showing negative responses to being touched, and less time resisting the teacher than those in the control…

In this project, a partnership between school and university personnel addressed, in a systematic, research-oriented fashion, a classroom problem. A young child with autism exhibited excessively loud screaming, yelling, humming, and other distracting noises during class activities in a special education setting. These disruptive behaviors were a…

In no area of developmental pediatric practice is there more controversy regarding the choice of treatment than related to children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). Complementary and alternative medical therapies (CAM) are often elected because they are perceived as treating the cause of symptoms rather than the symptoms themselves. CAM…

Autism is a developmental disorder affecting the lives of thousands of children. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 34 in 10,000 children ages 3 to 10 years of age have autism (CDC, 2004). The Autism Society of America (ASA) reports that 1 in 166 babies born today will develop autism spectrum disorder…

The 2004 Supreme Court of Canada decision in "Auton" concerns the right of autistic children to access services held by their parents to be essential to their children's ability to participate as members of a democratic society. It is argued that the child's right to have his or her basic developmental needs met is a constitutionally…

Many children with autism display reactions to auditory stimuli that seem as if the stimuli were painful or otherwise extremely aversive. This article describes, within the contexts of three experimental designs, how procedures of systematic desensitization can be used to treat hypersensitivity to auditory stimuli in three young children with…

Rich with clinical insights, this volume reviews the state of the science of identifying and treating autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in very young children. Leading authorities examine critical research issues and present innovative approaches to assessing social, cognitive, adaptive, communication, and sensory-motor impairments in the first two…