Teaching helping to adolescents with autism

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Science
• Developmental Psychology
• Autism Spectrum Disorder Research

Background:

• Social skills deficits are common in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• Effective interventions are needed to improve social reciprocity and adaptive behaviors in this population.
• Previous research (Reeve et al., 2007) demonstrated the efficacy of specific interventions for teaching helping behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To replicate and extend previous findings on teaching helping behaviors to adolescents with autism.
• To evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive treatment package including multiple-exemplar training, video modeling, prompting, and reinforcement.
• To assess the generalization of acquired helping behaviors across different settings and categories.

Main Methods:

• A replication and extension design was employed.
• Three adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder participated.
• A treatment package combining multiple-exemplar training, video modeling, prompting, and reinforcement was implemented.

Main Results:

• All three participants successfully acquired the targeted helping responses.
• Post-intervention probes indicated significant generalization of helping behaviors.
• Generalization occurred across various settings and different categories of helping behavior.

Conclusions:

• The treatment package is effective in teaching helping behaviors to adolescents with autism.
• The findings support the generalization of learned helping skills in individuals with ASD.
• This intervention approach holds promise for enhancing social competence in adolescents with autism.