Teaching pretend play to toddlers with autism

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

2021

First Committee Member

Ahearn, William H.

Second Committee Member

MacDonald, Rebecca

Third Committee Member

Henley, Amy J.

Abstract

"Deficits in social skills like pretend play are apparent in children with autism (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) and research has shown that deficits in pretend play skills could be an early sign of autism (Jarrold, 2013). Many methods have been utilized to teach pretend play skills to children with autism including video modeling, the use of substitutable loops, matrix training, and sociodramatic scripts. Goldstein and Cisar (1992) successfully used in-vivo modeling to teach sociodramatic scripts to children with autism. Like this approach, researchers in this study used in-vivo modeling to teach 9 play scripts that were associated with 3 different play themes; a doctor, chef, and firefighter. A multiple-probe design within and across play themes and across participants was used. During training the therapist would model the play script first and then allow the child the opportunity to complete the script using least-to-most prompting. The participants were tested to see if the untrained play skills generalized to the other play scripts. The dependent variables were the percentage of correct scripted actions and vocalizations completed for each play sequence as well as generalized play. With the second participant, pretend play was observed as well as a decrease in the rates of indiscriminate and discriminate play. Interobserver agreement was calculated for over 33% of sessions. The average agreement was above 81%."

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