Students with ASD are often taught in individual instructional arrangements, even when they receive educational services in inclusive settings. Providing intervention in small group arrangements may increase opportunities for social interactions, particularly when these opportunities are systematically planned. In this study, academic instruction…

Background: Children with autism spectrum disorder have impairments in social behaviours that require systematic intervention. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cool versus not cool procedure implemented in a small group (dyad). Method: The cool versus not cool procedure consisted of the researcher demonstrating the targeted behaviour…

Social deficits are a core characteristic of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and co-occurring intellectual disabilities (ASD-ID). Despite persistence of these deficits into adolescence, few social skills interventions have been empirically evaluated for older individuals with ASD-ID. The present investigation adapted an efficacious…

The goal of any behavioral program is to facilitate lasting change. A significant criticism of behavioral programs is that they work in the clinical setting but do not generalize once the clinical program is stopped. The authors suggest that behavioral programs often do not generalize because clinicians fail to plan for generalization to occur…

The purpose of this study was to teach empathetic responding to 4 children with autism. Instructors presented vignettes with dolls and puppets demonstrating various types of affect and used prompt delay, modeling, manual prompts, behavioral rehearsals, and reinforcement to teach participants to perform empathy responses. Increases in empathetic…

The initial purpose of the present study was to replicate procedures for teaching preschool children to recruit attention at appropriate times by having an experimenter signal the availability and unavailability of attention (i.e., arrange a multiple schedule involving reinforcement and extinction; Tiger & Hanley, 2004). Following the development…

Two children (ages 13 and 16) with autism were taught to differentiate appropriate from inappropriate social behaviors. Children's treated behaviors improved rapidly, and there were generalized changes in untreated social behaviors. Results suggest the possibility of identifying pivotal response classes of social behavior that may improve peer…

Discusses behavioral momentum and the general behavioral relation between the persistence of behavior and the rate of reinforcement obtained in a given situation. Strategies for establishing the generality of behavioral relations are reviewed, followed by a brief summary of evidence for the generality of behavioral momentum. (Author/CR)