Increasing Play Complexity in a Young Child With Autism

Abstract

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) demonstrate fewer and less varied play behaviors than children with typical development. This article describes two studies designed to increase two aspects of play complexity—diverse play actions and sequential play actions—in a child with ASD. In Study 1, we use a multitreatment single-case design to compare the use of the system of least prompts with contingent reinforcement for diverse play or all play. In Study 2, we used a multiple probe design to examine the relation between the system of least prompts with contingent reinforcement and the child’s use of play sequences. Across both studies, the complexity of play increased when specific aspects—diversity or sequences—were prompted and reinforced; however, the maintenance of effects were variable.

Least-to-Most Prompting in Teaching Social Interaction and Communication Skills to Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review

“…Most studies used multiple baseline design or multiple probe design. Also, a number of studies employed alternating or adapted alternating design or ABCBCC design to compare the effectiveness and efficacy of LTM with another method (Barton et al, 2019;Topuz & Ülke-Kürkçüoğlu, 2019;Van Der Meer et al, 2013). Therefore, future studies can continue to further evaluate the effectiveness and efficacy of LTM by employing other research designs.…”

“…It is notable that most of the recent studies on teaching social interaction and communication skills include joint attention (Hansen et al, 2019), manding (Raulston et al, 2019), play skills (Barton et al, 2019) and initiating interaction (Armendariz & Hahs, 2019). In general, of the studies reviewed, manding and play skills are targeted.…”

“…Two studies used AB design (Thiemann-Bourque et al, 2016;Schaefer-Whitby et al, 2019), one employed ABAB design (Kern et al, 2007) and changing criterion design. Four studies used alternating treatment design or adapted alternating design to compare LTM with another method (Ninci et al, 2018;Quigley et al, 2018;Topuz & Ülke-Kürkçüoğlu, 2019;Van Der Meer et al, 2013), while one study employed ABCBCC (Barton et al, 2019).…”

“…21 studies measured only one dependent variable while the rest targeted more than two. The studies determining one dependent variable targeted manding (Alzyrayer et al, 2017;Alzyrayer et al, 2019;Lund & Troha, 2008;Raulston et al, 2019;Roche et al, 2014;Schaefer-Whitby et al, 2019), asking questions (Huskens et al, 2013), play skills (Barton et al, 2019;Kourassanis et al, 2015;Quigley et al, 2018;Ülke-Kürkçüoğlu, 2015) receptive language (Curiel et al, 2016), joint attention (Hansen et al, 2018;Hansen et al, 2019), communicating through technology-aided instruction (Finke et al, 2017), social communication for job (Walsh et al, 2018) and initiating interaction (Charlop & Greenberg, 2009) skills. Nine studies targeted greeting and waving hands (Thiemann & Goldstein, 2004), manding and thanking (Waddington et al, 2014), play and communication skills (Barton, 2015;Barton et al, 2018), commenting and responding (D'Agostino et al, 2018), receptive language and manding (Ninci et al, 2018), initiating and elaborating interaction (Topuz & Ülke-Kürkçüoğlu, 2019).…”

“…Seventeen of 23 studies which measured maintenance reported that the participants maintained the skills they had acquired (e.g., Alzrayer et al, 2019;Walsh et al, 2018). However, none of the participants could maintain exhibiting the skills in three studies (Armendariz & Hahs, 2019;Barton et al, 2019;Shillingsburg & Cariveau, 2016).…”