Association for Behavior Analysis International

Safety skills are important for children with and without disabilities. Children with autism typically have difficulties with safety skills often related to problems with communication and problem solving. The first presenters evaluated the effects of video modeling and programming for common stimuli on children with autism answering or making a FaceTime call on an iPhone 6 or exchanging an identification card when approached by an employee or after approaching an employee when lost. Results demonstrated that children with autism can learn and generalize low-and high-tech help-seeking behaviors. The second group of presenters examined the use of video modeling for teaching children with autism to use the telephone to call someone for help. Results of the study suggest that teenagers diagnosed with autism can be taught problem solving skills by breaking down problem solving scenarios into task analyses and using video modeling strategies. Typically developing children also have issues with safety skills, particularly regarding abduction. The third presenter focused on the differential effects of verbal instructions, social stories, video modeling, and practice on child responses during in-situ abduction assessments. Results demonstrated that each participant performed better following practice compared to verbal instructions, social stories, and video modeling.

Deficits in safety skills and communication deficits place individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) at increased risk of danger. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of video modeling and programming for common stimuli to teach low- and high-tech help- seeking responses to children with autism when lost using a multiple probe across participants. All of the participants with autism acquired the skills of answering or making a FaceTime call on an iPhone 6 or exchanging an identification card when approached by an employee or after approaching an employee in a contrived setting, generalized the skills to novel community settings, and maintained the skills over a one and two- week follow-up. Normative data were collected with typically developing peers (i.e., without a diagnosis of a developmental disability) across the dependent variables during pre-baseline and post-intervention phases, with all participants being able to seek help when lost. Additionally, social validity measures showed that the procedures, goals, and outcomes of the study were acceptable to direct consumers, indirect consumers, immediate community members, and extended community members. Results demonstrate that children with ASD can learn and generalize low-and high-tech help-seeking behaviors.

For many teenagers diagnosed with autism, problem solving can be a complex skill to teach. Research indicates that using video modeling can be successful when teaching children with autism skills such as reciprocal conversation and play, but few studies address video modeling to teach problem solving skills. This study utilized a multiple baseline research design, to teach three teenagers diagnosed with autism the skill of using the telephone to call someone for help. During intervention, video modeling was introduced for each step of the problem solving task analysis, then faded as participants demonstrated the skill independently. For all participants, maintenance probes were completed one year after the initial training. Following intervention, all three participants completed 100% of the problem solving task analysis independently. One year later, two out of three participants maintained the skill at 100% of the task analysis. Results of the study suggest that teenagers diagnosed with autism can be taught problem solving skills by breaking down problem solving scenarios into task analyses and using video modeling strategies.

Family members or friends of the family commit the majority of child abductions (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 2015). Much of past research has focused on conducting in-situ assessments with novel confederates to determine if abduction prevention training was successful (Beck & Miltenberger, 2009, Johnson et al., 2005). The purpose of this abduction prevention analysis was to analyze the differential effects of verbal instructions, social stories, video modeling, and practice on the responses of children. A multi-element design was used to examine the differential effects of the various instructional modalities on child responses during in-situ abduction assessments. Four participants, two female and two male, participated in this study. They were all typically developing and ranged in age from four years of age to seven years of age. Following each instruction period, the in-situ assessment was done with an adult friend of the parents who the child knew. Results demonstrate that each participant performed better following practice compared to verbal instructions, social stories, and video modeling. Verbal instructions had no positive effects during the in situ assessments. Social stories and video modeling had mixed results as indicated on the graphs.