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Shared Moments: Generalization of Parent-Implemented Joint Attention Intervention for Young Children with ASD
Buket Erturk, Sarah G. Hansen, & Wendy Machalicek
Shared Moments: Generalization of Parent-Implemented Joint Attention Intervention for Young Children with Autism
method
background
The ability to share interest and shift attention between events, people, and objects (Hobson, 1989; Mundy, 2003).
In comparison to typically developing children, deficits in joint attention in children with ASD are evident from early on (Jones & Carr, 2004).
Joint attention is a nonverbal social communication milestone and children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty developing (Schertz & Odom, 2004).
Joint attention is a foundational skill for future social communication, language, and social skills (Charman, 2003).
Development of joint attention skills includes two types of joint attention behaviors: a) responding to joint attention bids and b) initiating joint attention bids (Mundy, Sigman, Ungerer, & Sherman, 1986).
Participants were 3 child-parent dyads.
. All child participants were 4 years old, diagnosed with ASD, and had limited response to joint attention skills.
Participants were screened using Joint Attention Subscale of Early Social Communication Scale (ESCS; Mundy et al., 2003).
10 minute sessions took place in a university based clinic where 3 sets of novel stimuli were placed in.
Generalization sessions took place in participants’ homes.
Procedures:
Parents were asked to play with their children as they usually do in baseline.
Parents received a 45-minute training on general strategies and prompting hierarchy to deliver JA bids.
Parents received coaching with immediate feedback until they reached 80% treatment fidelity for 3 consecutive sessions.
No training and coaching was delivered in generalization sessions.
Parent of participant 1 (Nancy) received a brief training on the use of a fixed ratio reinforcement schedule
Research Questions
Results
Is there a functional relation between parent training and increased parent fidelity of implementation of joint attention intervention?
Is there a functional relation between parent- implemented joint attention intervention and increased child response to joint attention?
Is there a functional relation between parent training and increased generalized parent fidelity and child response to joint attention?
Data suggest that prompted and independent responses to joint attention were at low levels in baseline phase.
Following parent-training and coaching, there is a strong to moderate functional relation with and increased prompted responses to joint attention bids.
Data indicate that there was a strong functional relation between the parent-training and coaching and increased parent treatment fidelity.
However, there was a weak functional relation between the increased parent fidelity and increased independent responses to parent bids.
Discussion
Results of this study indicated that parents can be taught to implement joint attention intervention.
Generalization data suggested that parents can generalize their skills of use of strategies to natural settings.
Generalization should be planned and monitored in natural settings in future research with sufficient number of data points.
Parent can be taught to identify novel and natural stimuli for joint attention bids in natural settings.
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