Teaching a young child with autism to request assistance conditionally: a preliminary study

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Applied Behavior Analysis
• Speech-Language Pathology

Background:

• Autistic disorder often presents with significant challenges in communication and social interaction.
• Individuals with autistic disorder may exhibit delays in developing functional communication skills, including making appropriate requests.
• Teaching conditional use of communicative behaviors is crucial for effective social and functional outcomes.

Observation:

• A 5-year-old boy diagnosed with autistic disorder and severe language delay participated in the study.
• The intervention focused on teaching the child to conditionally use requests for assistance across three functional tasks.
• A within-participant multiple-probe design was employed to assess skill acquisition and generalization.

Findings:

• The child initially acquired the ability to make requests for assistance.
• A brief period of overgeneralization of requests was observed.
• As task independence increased, the frequency of assistance requests decreased appropriately.
• The learned skill of conditional requesting and independent task completion was maintained over time.

Implications:

• This research underscores the importance of evaluating the conditional use of newly acquired communicative behaviors.
• Interventions should focus not only on teaching new skills but also on ensuring their appropriate and context-specific application.
• Further research is needed to explore effective strategies for promoting conditional communicative behavior in children with autistic disorder.