| Abstract: Individuals diagnosed with autism inherently demonstrate deficits in language acquisition, including errors in the use of personal pronouns such as you and me. Pronouns are particularly difficult for individuals with autism to learn because pronouns require a deictic shift, or the ability to detect a context change even when parts of the discriminative stimulus remain static. Acquiring pronouns also requires perspective taking skills. This presents unique challenges to teaching this skill to individuals with autism as deictic relations are determined by the perspective of the individual. This research was conducted to study the effectiveness of adapted methods outlined by Lund and Schnee (2014) for teaching pronouns you and me to individuals with autism who were participating in applied behavior analysis (ABA) programs. Generalization to novel stimuli and instructors were also assessed. This research attempts to demonstrate that using the adapted teaching procedures was effective for certain learners to accurately use the personal pronouns you and me. |