The Effect of Reinforcement, Prompting and Social Initiation as Intervention Strategies on the Abnormal Social Relations of Autistic Children

Abstract

Autistic children experience a deficit in verbal and non-verbal communication as well as their social development. They usually exhibit three broad symptoms, one of which is the failure to develop social relationships (Rutter,1978; Wood & Lazzari, 1997). Several studies have been conducted on intervention strategies that enhance the social repertoire of autistic children (Strain, 1983; Short, 1984; Strain, 1977). So far reinforcement, prompting and social initiations have proven to be effective intervention strategies especially when they have been administered by trained peers. However, to obtain generalization of the behaviour challenge the interventions have to be implemented across time and settings.