The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of explicit instruction combined with video prompting to teach text comprehension skills to students with autism spectrum disorder. Participants included 4 elementary school students with autism. A multiple probe across participants design was used to evaluate the intervention’s effectiveness. Results indicated that the intervention was successful for all participants. All participants mastered the comprehension skills; however, data were highly variable during the acquisition phase. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

The purpose of the study was to provide training to peer tutors to teach students with mild and moderate disabilities sales tax computation using a simultaneous prompting procedure with fidelity. Non-target information presented during training sessions and generalization to natural environment settings was assessed. A multiple probe (days) across participants design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention on the dependent variables. The results showed peer tutors could use the simultaneous prompting procedure with fidelity to teach sales tax computation and students with disabilities could acquire sales tax computation. The students acquired the non-target information presented and generalization occurred in a natural setting.

In the present experiment, a remote control tactile prompting device (RCT) was utilized to prompt a child with autism to recruit teacher models and play suggestions. A multiple baseline and reversal was used to assess the effects of the RCT across three play contexts. The results showed increases in the number of requests for models and suggestions as well as increases in the duration of interactive play between the child and therapist, the number of contextual statements emitted by the child, and the topography and contexts of the play behaviors emitted by the child. Findings are discussed in terms of the effectiveness and generality of the RCT and the issue of teaching a child to recruit versus teaching a child activity-specific behaviors.

The general purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of minimally intrusive prompting procedures and preferred stimuli on protodeclarative joint attention initiations in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Two boys and one girl diagnosed with ASD participated. The experimenter provided attention and social interaction following protodeclarative initiations throughout all phases of the study. During intervention, a model prompt was delivered every 30 s if the participant failed to initiate a bid for joint attention. Results for the first participant show that a model prompt was sufficient to increase the rate of protodeclarative initiations across stimulus sets. Generalization was seen across sets, but not across environments. Subsequently, the model prompt was sufficient to increase the rate of protodeclarative initiations across sets in a second setting (classroom). Results for the second participant are inconclusive. Data collected during the initial baseline condition show that she engaged in an incompatible verbal response across sets. When pictorial stimuli depicting highinterest items and activities were introduced, the rate of protodeclarative initiations increased over time. We then returned to original baseline condition and saw an initial decrease, followed by a steady increase in the rate of protodeclarative initiations. The third participant withdrew prematurely due to medical reasons. The findings of the current study show that minimally intrusive prompts and natural consequences may be sufficient to establish protodeclarative initiations in children. However, this finding may be limited to only those children for whom social interactions already function as reinforcers.

One useful strategy to support students with intellectual and developmental disability (IDD) to promote appropriate behaviors across environments and gain the social skills is using social stories. In addition, experts have recognized iPads and apps were associated with less challenging behavior and more academic engagement over traditional materials (Lee, Lang, Davenport, Moore, Rispoli, Meer, & Chung, 2013). The focus this study was to examine the effectiveness of an intervention package featuring social stories delivered via an iPad and simultaneous prompting on frequency of targeted challenging behavior and comprehension of the social story of a student with IDD. A single-subject multiple probe across behaviors (Kennedy, 2005) design was used to investigate the effectiveness of this intervention on the student's ability to correctly match pictures to steps in social stories as well as the targeted challenging behaviors. The results, future research, and the limitations of the study are discussed.

Peer mediated interventions have been effective in teaching academic and social skills to students with disabilities. The present study assesses the effectiveness of students with autism spectrum disorder serving as the tutor and tutee. Four peer mediators and four students with autism spectrum disorder used technology and the simultaneous prompting procedure to teach acquisition of social studies vocabulary. Results indicate that both students with and without autism spectrum disorder effectively delivered instruction using technology and all students learned a portion of the vocabulary taught by a same-aged peer.

Research shows that young children, typically developing with no developmental delays, hearing impairments or visual impairments, can acquire sign language to communicate their wants or needs prior to their ability to communicate through spoken language. However, much of the research reviewed focused on whether it was normative for young children to use signs or symbolic gestures to represent objects, make requests, or to express other wants or needs. In addition, many of the studies reviewed lacked scientific rigor and were primarily anecdotal in that much of the data relied on parent reports of his/her child's production of signs or symbolic gestures. The present study expanded upon the procedures of Thompson, McKerchar, and Dancho (2004) by teaching more complex signing repertoires using different training procedures. This study examined the acquisition of functional sign language by typically developing infants, ranging in age from 10 months to 14 months, using a training program which consisted of three components. The three components of intervention included a 30 minute group class once per week, an intensive or "booster" 1:1 session twice per week, and parent led training in the participant's home environment. During intervention a variety of concept items such as toys, pictures, books, and real objects were presented to represent the signs were utilized. A multiple baseline design across pairs of behaviors was employed to assess experimental changes in signing repertoires during the intervention conditions. All participants demonstrated zero rates of signing during baseline and showed an increase in their signing repertoires during intervention phases.

The intraverbal is argued to be the most socially significant verbal operant and yet it is the least studied. Heal and Hanley (2011) suggest that different teaching strategies will lead to different rates of acquisition and child-preference with the tacting operant. This study continued this research into the realm of intraverbals, with focus on whether the embedded teaching strategy could be punishing on play or engaging in learning opportunities. The teaching strategies of discovery teaching, embedded prompting, and direct teaching were compared to see which strategy correlated with higher rates of acquisition and higher child preference. The study utilized a multi-element design by rapidly alternating teaching strategies while evaluating rate of acquisition and number of learning opportunities within the teaching strategies. Child preference was also demonstrated through card selection of associated teaching strategies in a concurrent chains agreement design. The teaching strategies differed in the amount of teacher directedness and taught intraverbal "Wh" questions. It was found through this study that embedded prompting did not punish play or the engagement in learning opportunities. The three participants preferred the three strategies differently and all participants were responding correctly the highest percentage of the time during the direct teaching contingencies by the end of the teaching sessions.

Simultaneous prompting is an errorless learning strategy designed to reduce the number of errors students make; however, research has shown a disparity in the number of errors students make during instructional versus probe trials. This study directly examined the effects of error correction versus no error correction during probe trials on the effectiveness and efficiency of simultaneous prompting on the acquisition of sight words by three middle school students with moderate intellectual disabilities. A single-case adapted alternating treatments design (Sindelar, Rosenberg, & Wilson, 1985) was employed to examine the effects of error correction during probe trials in order to reduce error rates. A functional relation was established for two of the three students for the use of error correction during probe sessions to reduce error rates. Error correction during assessment probes required fewer sessions to criterion, resulted in fewer probe errors, resulted in a higher percentage of correct responding on the next subsequent trial, and required less total probe time. For two of the three students, probes with error correction resulted in a more rapid acquisition rate requiring fewer sessions to criterion.

This study was done to evaluate the simultaneous prompting procedure when teaching math skills during play time to young children with disabilities. The research included 5 students who participated in a special education resource classroom and general education classroom. The researcher used a design similar to a multiple probe design. The study found all participants who began intervention met criterion. The research also found students who participated in maintenance and generalization met criterion during those stages.