We assessed the effects of teaching sociodramatic play to three children with autism. The training was conducted using a variation of Pivotal Response Training (PRT), a program traditionally used to teach language to children with autism. Measures of play skills, social behavior, and language skills were obtained before treatment, after treatment, and at a follow-up period. The correlation between language and pretend play was explored, as was the relationship between sociodramatic play and social competence. Positive changes were observed in play, language, and social skills. These changes generalized across toys and settings, although little generalization to other play partners occurred. Effects of play training with children with autism and maintenance of behavior change is discussed.
When do infants begin to communicate positive affect about physical objects to their social partners? We examined developmental changes in the timing of smiles during episodes of initiating joint attention that involved an infant gazing between an object and a social partner. Twenty-six typically developing infants were observed at 8, 10, and 12 months during the Early Social-Communication Scales, a semistructured assessment for eliciting initiating joint attention and related behaviors. The proportion of infant smiling during initiating joint attention episodes did not change with age, but there was a change in the timing of the smiles. The likelihood of infants smiling at an object and then gazing at the experimenter while smiling (anticipatory smiling) increased between 8 and 10 months and remained stable between 10 and 12 months. The increase in the number of infants who smiled at an object and then made eye contact suggests a developing ability to communicate positive affect about an object.The onset of initiating joint attention, which we define as an infant coordinating visual attention between an object and a social partner, is a crucial milestone in the development of intentional communication. Clarification of the role positive affect plays in the onset and early development of initiating joint attention is important to understanding the origins of voluntary communication (Adamson & Bakeman, 1985;Jones & Hong, 2001;Messinger & Fogel, 1998). We designed a longitudinal study to examine the changing role of infant positive affect when initiating joint attention at 8, 10, and 12 months of age. The focus of the study is the development of anticipatory smiles in which infants smile at an object and then gaze at a social partner while smiling (see Figure 1).In the period between 8 and 12 months of age, infants become more intentionally communicative. Their use of discrete nonverbal communication behaviors during social interactions becomes increasingly apparent (Mundy & Willoughby, 1996). Infants also tend to display positive affect more frequently during bouts of initiating joint attention than during other types of nonverbal interactions (Adamson & Bakeman, 1985;Kasari, Sigman, Mundy, & Yirmiya, 1990;Messinger & Fogel, 1998;Mundy, Kasari, & Sigman, 1992). Adamson and Bakeman suggested that affective displays support infants' early attempts to communicate with others about objects. They documented a developmental increase in a broad measure of affective expressions during periods of initiating joint attention, although different modalities of affective expression showed different developmental effects. Messinger and Fogel found that gazes at mother and smiles tended to co-occur when infants offered objects to mother, an instance of initiating joint attention. However, there was no developmental change in the likelihood of offers involving gazes at mother and smiles. In sum, although prototypic displays of positive affect such as smiles often occur during initiating joint attention, it is not clear ho...
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