An experimental, single-subject research study investigated the comparative efficacy of the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) versus a speech-generating device (SGD) in developing requesting skills for three elementary-age children with severe autism and little to no functional speech. Results demonstrated increases in requesting…

Previous research has shown that children with autism often have deficits in deception, both in the ability to lie to others and in the ability to detect when they are being lied to. Additionally, children with autism are frequently the victims of bullying and difficulty with understanding deception likely makes the population more vulnerable to…

In social studies, students learn about society and the culture in which they live, current and historical events, people from different backgrounds, and how to develop skills for participating in a democratic system. As people with disabilities are members of our society, participation in social studies content is an important component of their…

For students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and intellectual disability, the need for scientific literacy is further complicated by the need for individualized instruction necessary to teach new skills, especially when those skills are academic. This study investigated the effects of embedded, computer-assisted explicit instruction to teach…

iPads[R] are increasingly used in the education of children with autism spectrum disorder. However, few empirical studies have examined the effects of iPads[R] on student behaviors. The purpose of this study was to compare academic instruction delivered with an iPad[R] to instruction delivered through traditional materials for two students with…

A multiple probe across participants design was used to assess the effects of an intervention package on reading fluency and section-based and topography-based comprehension tasks. Participants were three adolescents diagnosed with high functioning pervasive developmental disorders. The intervention package consisted of listen passage preview,…

The Barnet Early Autism Model (BEAM) for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) was compared to a time-comparable approach (Portage) in terms of child outcomes and parental functioning. BEAM produced improvements in the adaptive behavioural function and language abilities of the children with ASD. Additionally, the programme produced…

Instructive feedback (IF) is a teaching strategy in which extra information is presented to a student during teaching trials for other target skills. Research has shown that when IF is utilized with students with disabilities, they acquire additional skills without additional instructional time (fewer trials and sessions), resulting in more…

The purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate a rapid assessment procedure to identify effective instructional strategies to teach auditory-visual conditional discriminations to children diagnosed with autism. We replicated and extended previous rapid skills assessments (Lerman, Vorndran, Addison, & Kuhn, 2004) by evaluating the effects…

Articles that empirically investigated the emergence of untaught equivalence relations among individuals with autism are presented in this review. Systematic searches of academic databases, journals and ancestry searches identified nine studies that met inclusion criteria. These studies were evaluated according to: (a) participants, (b)…

We examined the emergence of listener responses following intraverbal training in four children with autism. Intraverbal training consisted of a transfer-of-control procedure in which the participants were taught to answer questions in the form of "What is the state bird of [name of state]" using either picture prompts (tact-to-intraverbal…

Researchers have shown that children with autism have difficulty with non-literal language, such as irony, sarcasm, deception, humor, and metaphors. To date, few studies have attempted to remediate these deficits, and no studies of which we are aware have attempted to teach children with autism to understand metaphors. Metaphorical reasoning…

We compared two prompting techniques that are commonly used to teach individuals with autism. In the "most-to-least" (MTL) prompting condition, the therapist initially delivered the most intrusive prompt necessary to achieve a correct response. Prompts were gradually faded across subsequent trials, while errors resulted in the provision of…

Whilst impairments in joint attention, imitation, and pretend play are well documented in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the developmental trajectories of these symptoms remain unknown. The main objective was to explore these trajectories in a sample of children at risk for ASD between the ages of 2 and 4 years. After screening…

It is essential to understand the current practices used to foster inclusive education for students with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) as well as factors related to the implementation of classroom interventions. In the current study authors assess the experience, knowledge, attitudes and current practices of education professionals regarding…