PROMOTING SOCIAL INITIATION IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM USING VIDEO MODELING

A large number of studies have shown that children and youths with autism can improve their social skills when provided with appropriate and well planned treatment strategies. Here, a video modeling procedure was implemented with seven developmentally delayed children, using a multiple-treatment design. Each child watched a videotape showing a model and the experimenter engaged in a simple social interactive play in an adapted play setting. Afterwards each child’s behavior was assessed in this setting, while the experimenter’s behavior remained the same as that shown in the videotape. The video modeling training enhanced the social initiation skills of four children. It also facilitated appropriate play engagement, which generalized across settings, peers, and toys. These changes maintained after a 1- and 2-month follow-up period. The intervention was evaluated as a time-efficient teaching tool as well as a means of enhancing appropriate play skills. Copyright # 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Autism is the most widely recognized developmental disorder characterized by severe and pervasive impairments in several areas of development: reciprocal social interaction skills, communication skills and the presence of restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Moreover, many researchers have suggested that the social impairment of children with autism may be their most important deficit (Koegel, Koegel, Hurley, & Frea, 1992; Roeyers, 1995). Although this problem is pervasive, a large number of studies have proved that children and youths with autism can improve their social skills when provided with appropriate and well planned treatment strategies (Swaggart et al., 1995). For instance, peer-implemented pivotal response training (Pierce & Schreibman, 1995, 1997), peer incidental teaching (McGee, Almeida, Sulzer-Azaroff, & Feldman, 1992; McGee, Morrier, & Daly, 1999), and classwide peer tutoring (Kamps, Barbetta, Leonard, & Delquadri, 1994) are among the behavioral procedures that have been successful in producing positive changes in the social behavior of these children.