Abstract
While children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can acquire helping behaviors through appropriate interventions, changes in behaviors prior to helping (pre-helping behaviors) remain unclear. In the present study, we examined the effects of social skills training (SST) on helping and pre-helping behaviors in two children with ASD by using a two-dimensional motion capture system. During the SST, the children learned one helping behavior that they lent their items to their partners, and we measured their head movements before initiating the helping behavior (i.e., pre-helping behavior). As a result of SST, the participants became able to help others in response to less explicit social stimuli after the intervention. Regarding pre-helping behaviors, the children with ASD before the intervention looked straight at the helpee (i.e., recipient of the help) more often than did typically-developing peers, and such a behavior was shown to increase after SST. These results indicate that although spontaneous attention to social stimuli may be reduced in children with ASD, success in attending to a helpee could lead to the emergence of helping behaviors. Moreover, the changes in pre-helping behavior indicate an increase in children’s attention to the helpee after the intervention, which may have enhanced their sensitivity to persons in need.
Highlights
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in social interactions (Tsujii, 2004), as reflected by scarce prosocial behaviors (Carter et al, 2005)
Shaping appropriate helping behaviors in children with ASD may increase their chances of successful social interactions and facilitate interpersonal communication
The present study revealed characteristics of prehelping behaviors in children with ASD, which have rarely been addressed in previous studies using overhead-motion track studies due to technical difficulties
Summary
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulties in social interactions (Tsujii, 2004), as reflected by scarce prosocial behaviors (Carter et al, 2005). Similar results have been reported in elementary-to-junior high-school students with ASD (Matsuoka and Noro, 2001; Suto, 2006; Suto and Oishi, 2007). These successful outcomes may be due to an improvement in attention toward social stimuli, such as the words of others and situations in which they were placed (Suto, 2008). Based on these findings, shaping and adjustment of helping behaviors in ASD can be achieved through interventions that directly target such behaviors
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