Increasing play-related statements in children with autism toward their siblings: Effects of video modeling

Two experiments were conducted to assess the effects of video modeling procedures to increase play comments in two children with autism toward their siblings. A multiple baseline probe design was used in both studies to assess the intervention across three play activities for each participant. Study 1 used video modeling procedures similar to Charlop and Milstein (1989). The participant viewed scripted play comments between his sibling and an adult, and then participated in practice sessions with the same stimuli and an adult. Probe sessions assessed play comments with the sibling, in the absence of video viewing. Results of this study revealed the participant learned to make the scripted play comments for all three play activities, lit Study 2, a forward chaining procedure was implemented to assess acquisition of a longer series of comments, as well as the effects of video models that did not contain scripted comments by the participant's sibling. The participant viewed brief segments of video models of play comments between an adult and the participant's sibling in a sequential format and participated in practice sessions with an adult with the same stimuli. Retention probes were conducted to assess play comments with the sibling in the absence of video viewing. Results of this study indicated that the participant made a higher number of play comments following video modeling intervention than prior to intervention for all three play activities. Additionally, comments were both scripted and unscripted for this participant. Both of these studies revealed that video modeling was an effective intervention for teaching children with autism to make play comments toward their siblings.