Teaching Academic Skills to Children with Autism During Small Group Instruction with Typically Developing Peers*

Introduction: In this study, pre-school aged children with autism were taught to answer verbally to five different questions about professions through the constant time delay procedure when presented in heterogeneous small group instruction in inclusive settings. The study also aimed to investigate skill maintenance, generalization and observational learning. Also it is observed that what kind of social interaction behaviors that children with autism learned from their peers without disabilities during the teaching of the targeted skills. Method: The participants of the study were three preschool children with autism and six of their peers without disabilities. Multiple probe design with probe trials across subjects was used in the study. Findings: Results showed that all participants learned target skills, generalized them across different settings and materials, and maintained the acquired skills one, two and four weeks after the study. Observational learning data showed that children with autism learned at least some of their peers' target professions and social behaviors. Social comparison showed that the children with autism reached the same level of the performance with their peers. Social validity data collected from parents and teachers were positive in general. Discussion: The constant time delay procedure presented in a small group arrangement was found to be effective in teaching to answer verbally five different questions about professions. Similar results supporting these findings are available in the literature. It is thought that observational learning data are derived from target skills and student characteristics. Other points that need to be discussed are included in detail.