Teaching Young Children With Social-Communication Delays to Label Actions Using Videos and Language Expansion Models

Abstract

Young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and related social-communication delays may display difficulties commenting on actions that occur in their natural environment. One method for increasing early conversation skills is direct instruction. Using video examples of actions may increase the salient features of instructional targets and, as such, may be an effective stimulus for presenting actions during instruction. The present study used a multiple-probe design across participants replicated across behaviors to evaluate the effectiveness of a 0- to 4-s progressive time-delay (PTD) procedure using video presentation of actions to teach three preschool-aged children with ASD and related social-communication delays to label actions. In addition, the teacher provided language expansion on all instructional targets, as well as assessed generalization to novel stimuli (videos and pictures or photographs). Results indicate that all participants acquired action labels. Two of the three participants generalized responses to novel videos and pictures while expanding their responses without direct instruction. Implications for teachers targeting action labels in early childhood settings are provided.

Comparing Pictures and Videos for Teaching Action Labels to Children With Communication Delays

“…First, both videos and pictures were equally effective for all children (i.e., all children acquired action labels taught with pictures and videos), which aligns with past research in which children with related communication delays acquired target action labels taught with pictures (Jones & Schwartz, 2004) and videos (Shepley et al, 2016). In addition, this finding extends the literature by systematically replicating research using time-delay response prompting strategies during direct instruction to teach action labels to children with related communication delays in preschool classrooms (Shepley et al, 2016). Second, no consistent differences in trials to mastery were observed, potentially indicating that differences in acquisition rates may be more heavily influenced by past learning histories than by the mediums through which actions were presented.…”

“…Last, differences in generalized responding were only observed for Chris. This was an unexpected finding given arguments posed by other researchers (Davidoff & Masterson, 1996;Shepley et al, 2016), suggesting that the ability of videos to present a specific sequence of interactions between objects and an environment may better facilitate models of actions than static pictures. We hypothesize that our use of multiple exemplars may have been a better facilitator of generalization than the medium presenting the actions.…”

Erratum to: Promoting Expressive Language in Young Children with or At-Risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder in a Preschool Classroom

“…In the Participants and Instructor section, under the subheading Greg the following statement was incorrectly described as "It should be noted that Greg previously participated in a research study in which language expansion was provided by the instructor (citation blinded for review)", instead of "It should be noted that Greg previously participated in a research study in which language expansion was provided by the instructor (Shepley et al 2014)".…”

SocialSibs: Effects of Hybrid Sibling-Mediated Intervention on Joint Attention for Children with ASD and their Neurotypical Siblings

“…VM is a method of instruction that teaches a variety of skills and behaviors by using peers, adults, or the viewer themselves to demonstrate examples of a targeted behavior that is then video recorded (Buggey, 2012;Haydon et al, 2017;Lee et al, 2017;Shepley, 2016). The person receiving intervention then reviews the video with a clinician to understand an practice the behavior (Buggey, 2012).…”

“…As VM is primarily a delivery model of intervention, it can be tailored for each individual using it. VM has been shown to be efficacious in many different situations for many different age groups from young children to adults (Buggey, 2012;Haydon et al, 2017;Lee et al, 2017;Shepley, 2016). It can also be used to teach skills and behaviors ranging from social skills to pretend play (Buggey, 2012;Haydon et al, 2017;Shepley et al, 2016).…”