Peer-Mediated Joint Attention Intervention in the Preschool Classroom

Abstract

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disabilities are at risk of isolation from same-aged peers. Furthermore, research indicates that even in inclusive settings, children with ASD benefit from targeted interventions and support. Among the social communication skills that are frequently absent in children with ASD is joint attention. Joint attention can be defined as shared engagement between two individuals on a third object or event and has been identified as potential pivotal skill for later development of age-appropriate social skills and communication. A growing body of literature documents effective intervention on joint attention skill for young children with ASD; however, few studies document the effects of an intervention mediated by a natural change agent. In the present study, independent concurrent multiple-baseline designs were used to evaluate the impact of a joint attention intervention combined with peer training on the response to joint attention (RJA) behaviors exhibited by seven preschoolers with ASD. Results indicated that RJA behaviors increased overall, the seven peers were able to carry out a simple intervention with fidelity, and that both bids from peers and responses to those bids increased following intervention. Limitations and opportunities for future research are discussed.

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

“…Nearly a half of the studies (n = 16) was conducted in school (e.g., Barton, 2015;Charlop & Greenberg, 2009;Hansen et al, 2019), five at home (e.g., Armendariz & Hahs, 2019), two in both home and class (Cannella-Malone et al, 2010;Van Der Meer et al, 2013). Similarly, Shepley et al (2019) found that most of 123 studies were conducted in school settings.…”

“…In 23 of the studies reviewed, the implementer was the researcher (e.g., Schaefer-Whitby et al, 2019) while a teacher implemented the procedure in four (e.g., Kern et al, 2007). A master student and an occupational therapist (Lund & Troha, 2008), a teacher assistant (Xin & Leonard, 2015), a peer (Thiemann-Bourque et al, 2016), both a peer and the researcher (Hansen et al, 2019) were also among the implementers. Parents were the implementers in three studies (Erturk et al, 2020;Hansen et al, 2018;Raulston et al, 2019), and mother and researcher in one study (Van Der Meer et al, 2013).…”

“…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).…”

“…In 12 of the studies that collected social validity data (n = 14), all consumers suggested positive opinions towards the procedure (e.g., Curiel et al, 2016;Hansen et al, 2019;Ülke-Kürkçüoğlu, 2015;Van Der Meer et al, 2013).…”

A Parent-Implemented Playdate Intervention for Young Children With Autism and Their Peers

“…Similarly, Joint Attention, Symbolic Play, and Emotional Regulation (JASPER) uses environmental arrangement, prompting, and child-led play to improve joint attention and social engagement (Chang, Shire, Shih, Gelfand, & Kasari, 2016). Further research has used other packages of supported practices, including social narratives to prompt prosocial behavior prior to play (e.g., Hansen et al, 2018), visual supports to plan play (Charlop, Lang, & Rispoli, 2018), and activity-based intervention that capitalizes on natural learning opportunities (e.g., Barton, Choi, & Mauldin, 2019). Parents of children with ASD have been trained and coached to implement social-communication interventions using didactic trainings, role-play, prompting, and performance feedback methods (Ruppert, Machalicek, Hansen, Raulston, & Frantz, 2016).…”