Individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) display significant impairment in communication development, social interaction, and the existence of repetitive, restricted, and stereotyped behavioral patterns. Considering up to 50% of children with autism will either develop limited speech and language capacity, or none, they may have to rely on pre-linguistic behaviors such as eye-gazing, reaching, and pointing (Van der Meer and Rispoli).
Children exhibiting ASD may benefit from augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), whose objective is to supplement or take the place of nature speech, achieved via aided systems or unaided strategies. Aided systems will utilize external tools with a communicative function, for example, Picture Exchange or Speech-Generating Devices (SGDs). SGD use has become widespread over the years with different versions being made available to users. They are often portable devices, which respond to input actions with synthesized or digitized speech output.
Imitation is crucial for virtually all developmental trajectories, including communication, play, and observational learning (Ledford and Wolery). Children on the autism spectrum, however, exhibit deficits in imitation, even when compared with children who have other intellectual or developmental disabilities. Consequently, researchers have been trying to come up with strategies to teach ASD children how to imitate effectively. Children with ASD could be taught imitation skills through discrete trial training (DTT), where a therapist presents an instruction and offers reinforcement following an appropriate response.
Video modelling (VM) is a relatively recent strategy for teaching imitation skills. In VM, previously recorded videos of models performing certain actions are used to trigger new behaviors in participants (McDowell, Gutierrez and Bennett). VM could be appropriate for enhancing communication skills in ASD children owing to a greater tendency for stimulus over-selectivity in ASD individuals. It is also relatively low cost and can be easily implemented.
Children with ASD display deficits in behaviors in key areas, including responding to multiple cues, self-management, motivation, empathy, and self-initiation in the course of social interactions. When interventions target the pivotal areas, there may be improvements in other behaviors as well (Huskens et al.). Self-initiations refer to activities such as question-asking, first words, attention-seeking initiations, and child-initiated comments. Children who have ASD demonstrate deficits in self-initiations. Conversely, the capacity to engage in self-initiations is an indicator of favorable long-lived effects in numerous other behaviors, considering self-initiation results in self-learning (Huskens et al.).
Numerous devices and strategies such as SGDs, computer games, virtual reality have been adopted in interventions for children with ASD. Robots are particularly used as they are engaging and motivate children to participate in interactions. Technology, overall, is considered inherently appealing to children with ASD. In addition, robot behaviors are largely predictable and consistent; characteristics that may be preferred by children with ASD. Also, social interactions with people may be more taxing considering the multiple cues at play. Consequently, interactions with robots are simpler and could reduce stress and pressure that ASD children associate with human interactions (Huskens et al.)
Van de Meer and Rispoli (2010) Article Question
Considering the continued adoption of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools such as Speech-Generating Devices, are children with autism capable of learning to make use of SGDs to communicate?
McDowell et al (2015) Article Question
How effective is the use of Video Modelling (LM) alone in teaching imitation skills to children with ASD in comparison with more traditional strategies such as live modelling (LM)?
Huskens et al (2012) Article Question
How effective are applied behavior analysis (ABA) based interventions carried out by robots compared to ABA based interventions carried out by human trainers in the promotion of self-initiated activities, self-initiated questions in the current case, in children with ASD?
Works Cited
Huskens, Bibi, et al. "Promoting Question-Asking in School-Aged Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Effectiveness of a Robot Intervention Compared to a Human-Trainer Intervention." Developmental neurorehabilitation 16.5 (2013): 345-56. Print.
Ledford, Jennifer R, and Mark Wolery. "Teaching Imitation to Young Children with Disabilities: A Review of the Literature." Topics in Early Childhood Special Education 30.4 (2011): 245-55. Print.
McDowell, Logan S, Anibal Gutierrez, and Kyle D Bennett. "Analysis of Live Modeling Plus Prompting and Video Modeling for Teaching Imitation to Children with Autism." Behavioral Interventions 30.4 (2015): 333-51. Print.
Van der Meer, Larah AJ, and Mandy Rispoli. "Communication Interventions Involving Speech-Generating Devices for Children with Autism: A Review of the Literature." Developmental Neurorehabilitation 13.4 (2010): 294-306. Print.
