The effect of a script-fading procedure on responses to peer initiations among young children with autism

Abstract

A core deficit of people with autism is an inability to initiate and to sustain conversation with others. Several studies demonstrate the effectiveness of the script-fading procedure on improving the social initiation skills of people with autism. Nevertheless, there is little focus on responding to initiations. The purpose of this study was to use pre-recorded scripts to teach young children with autism to respond to each other's initiations. The three participants, ages 5 through 7 years, demonstrated deficits in peer interactions. In a study by Wichnick, Vener, Keating, and Poulson (2009), these participants were taught to initiate to one another, but they did not respond to each other's initiations. During the baseline condition of the current study, the participants emitted few, if any, responses to peer initiations. When scripts were introduced, responding to peer initiations increased systematically across the participants. Moreover, as scripts were faded, there was a systematic increase in the cumulative number of novel responses to peer initiations. These findings suggest that script fading can increase both the number of reciprocal peer social interactions, and the production of novel reciprocal interactions, emitted by young children with autism.