Much research exists supporting the efficacy of naturalistic behavioral interventions on increasing social communication skills for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD); however, these evidence-based interventions are not consistently utilized in preschool classrooms. Prelinguistic Milieu Teaching was used to teach early intentional…

According to the recent estimate reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2018), 1 in 59 children has been identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). One of the core characteristics of ASD is a social communication deficit (American Psychiatric Association, 2017). Young children with ASD may exhibit early difficulties in…

Purpose: The intersection of treatment intensity and communication intervention is an emerging area of investigation. Milieu teaching (MT) approaches for teaching communication skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a substantial evidence base (see Goldstein, 2002). However, a relatively small percentage (37.8%) of MT studies…

Understanding what autism means on a personal level can be an important process for young people on the autistic spectrum, and being able to reflect on this and discuss with autistic peers can be particularly helpful. However, opportunities may be restricted by reluctance to talk about diagnosis and because of difficulties in communication…

Purpose: Children with autism display marked deficits in initiating and maintaining social interaction. Intervention using play routines can create a framework for developing and maintaining social interaction between these children and their communication partners. Method: Six nonverbal 5- to 8-year-olds with autism were taught to engage in…

A milieu teaching sequence was used to train photograph exchange as a method of requesting to a 7-year-old boy with autism. A multiple baseline design across four items (ball, puzzle, books, bubbles) was used to identify a functional relation between requesting and the milieu teaching sequence. Although performance during intervention was…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of enhanced milieu teaching (EMT) implemented by parents and therapists versus therapists only on the language skills of preschool children with intellectual disabilities (IDs), including children with Down syndrome and children with autism spectrum disorders. Method: Seventy-seven…

Naturalistic interventions show promise for improving language in children with autism. Specific interventions differ in direct elicitation of child language and indirect language stimulation, and thus may produce different language outcomes. This study compared the effects of responsive interaction, milieu teaching, and a combined intervention on…

Several researchers have employed milieu therapy to address the communication needs of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Thus, the purpose of this review is to examine milieu therapy, particularly, the environments and individuals involved in the training and the effectiveness of milieu therapy with children who have a diagnosis of ASD…

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of combining milieu therapy and functional communication training (FCT) to replace aberrant behavior with functional communicative skills in 3 male preschool or elementary aged children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Study activities were conducted in the natural…

Examined effects of training six parents to use Enhanced Milieu Teaching with their preschoolers with autism/pervasive developmental disabilities. Found that parents learned strategies during 24 individual training sessions, generalized strategies to home interactions, and maintained procedure use at 6 months follow-up. Most children's complexity…

This study examined effects of Enhanced Milieu Teaching on the social communications skills of four preschool children with autism when delivered by trained interventionists. Observational data indicated that all children showed positive increases for specific target language use at the end of 24 intervention sessions, and these results were…