Increasing Requesting Skills in Individuals with Autism: Animated Pictures vs. Video Modeling

Background:

Teachers commonly use visually-based strategies with students with ASD. In this session, results will be presented from two studies which compared static pictures to animated visual cues (i.e., video to determine if one was more effective for teaching body part recognition and requesting skills. Implications for classroom use will be discussed.

Objectives:

·         Increase understanding of the pros and cons of two types of visually-based strategies for students with ASD

·         Discuss differentiated effectiveness for two groups of children with ASD

·         Describe leaner characteristics which may influence strategy effectiveness

Methods:

An alternating treatment with replication within a multiple probe design across participants was used to compare the use of static pictures and video modeling to determine if one method was more efficient than the other.

Results:

Results indicated all of the participants improved their ability to request. There was a significant difference in the data between the two interventions for three of the four participants. However two of the participants performed better during the sessions using static pictures. One participant performed better during the sessions using video modeling. The data for the fourth participant did not show a significant difference between the two interventions.

Conclusions:

·         All participants improved in their ability to request

·         Participants with higher verbal abilities and higher adaptive behavior scores experienced some success with video modeling

·         Participants that experienced success with video modeling reported watching TV. at home

·         Participants that did not experience success with video modeling were not reported to have watched TV. at home

·         Imitation from a live model does not equal imitation from video model

·         Two teachers participated in the study

·         Both teachers indicated an interest in both strategies of instruction

·         One teacher preferred the intervention utilizing static pictures

·         One teacher preferred the intervention utilizing video modeling