Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty with personal hygiene skills, such as toothbrushing, yet there is a dearth of studies in this area demonstrating experimental control. We used a multiple-probe-across-participants design to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment package that consisted of a picture activity…

This study examined the effect of Pivotal response treatment (PRT) to improve verbal initiations in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, age 6-12 years old, using a Randomized Clinical Trial design. Intervention was conducted three times a week for 2 months, for a total of 24 one-hour sessions. The PRT intervention taught a variety of questions…

Intraverbal tacts are an example of multiply controlled verbal behavior. More specifically, they are verbal responses under control of both a nonverbal (visual) stimulus (e.g., a green ball) and a verbal (auditory) stimulus (e.g., "What color?" vs. "What shape?"). Studies have shown that verbal behavior training can be arranged…

Adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) without an intellectual disability have daily living skills (DLS) impairments. An initial feasibility pilot of Surviving and Thriving in the Real World (STRW), a group intervention that targets DLS, demonstrated significant improvements. A pilot RCT of STRW was conducted to extend these findings.…

Previous studies on skill acquisition have taught targets in stimulus sets composed of different numbers of stimuli. Although the rationale for selection of a stimulus set size is not clear, the number of target stimuli trained within a set is a treatment decision for which there is limited empirical support. The current investigation compared the…

This study captured the experiences of 35 autistic adolescents and their parents after completing a 16-session variant of social skills group training KONTAKT® (ACTRN12617001117303). Semi-structured interviews explored participants' and relatives' perceptions of KONTAKT® and associated social outcomes. Adolescents were classified as either high…

This systematic review and meta-analysis is the first to evaluate the effects of group-based social skills training (SST) on parent-report social responsiveness in adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A total of 18 studies were included in the narrative review and among them five randomized-controlled trials (n = 145) were included in the…

Accidental poisonings can occur for children with disabilities as a result of ingesting household products, such as medications and cleaning chemicals, if the products are not stored safely. Behavioral approaches such as behavioral skills training (BST) have been used in previous research to teach safety skills to children with disabilities.…

Researchers widely assert that requiring eye contact from students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) before instruction is highly important to the outcome of teaching (Greer and Ross in Verbal behavior analysis, Pearson Education, New York, 2008; Lovaas in J Consult Clin Psychol 55(1):3-9, 1977. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006x.55.1.3).…

Auditory-visual conditional discrimination training (e.g., receptive identification training, listener responses; AVCD) is ubiquitous in early intervention and special education programs. Nevertheless, some learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) do not appear to benefit from this training despite use of empirically validated treatments. To…

It is still unknown whether visual illusion can bias motor performance in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) individuals. The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of visual illusion on performance in children with ASD in a far-aiming skill. In a within-subject design, participants (n = 20, IQ > 70, mean age: 10.15) performed golf putting…

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty generalizing from directly trained responses to untrained responses (i.e., emergent responding). In this study, we used a chain prompt combined with matrix training to teach 2 participants with ASD to tact 192 three-digit numerals. We used a multiple-baseline design across matrices to…

For most children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), manding for information is an important skill that must be systematically taught. Although previous studies have evaluated interventions for teaching other mands for information, to date no studies have demonstrated effective procedures for teaching the mand "why?" The purpose of the…

In today's society, technology plays a fundamental role. More and more activities of daily life are being developed with the help of technology. One of the emerging technologies in recent years is augmented reality, (AR) which generate great benefits for people with disability. These visual technologies provide safe and controlled environments in…

We examined the effects of the least-to-most prompting (LTM) procedure with contingent imitation (CI) on increasing the frequency and diversity of pretend play in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) using a multiple probe across toy sets single-case research design. Three children with ASD ages 5 to 6 years took part in the study. LTM was…