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Social-Communication Intervention for Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Effects on Initiating Joint Attention and Interactions with Mother

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Abstract

From infancy, children who later receive a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show impairments in eye gaze within both joint attention and requesting contexts and, most notably, when initiating interactions. These impairments correlate with later social, communication, and play development. To adequately address the social-communication impairments that characterize ASD, early intervention must address each of these areas. We examined a brief social-communication intervention teaching eye gaze in select social-communication contexts while examining generalization to initiating joint attention and interactions with participants’ mothers. Three toddlers with ASD participated in intervention involving prompting, prompt fading, and reinforcement. Two toddlers showed generalization from requesting to joint attention with the interventionist; all three showed generalization to interactions with their mothers in a semi-structured play interaction. Findings are discussed in terms of generalization and efficiency of intervention.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Jeovanna Coloma for assisting with data collection. Thank you to the families who committed their time to this research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Queens College, City University of New York, 65-30 Kissena Boulevard, Queens, NY, 11367, USA

    Madiha S. Muzammal & Emily A. Jones

  2. The Graduate Center, City University of New York, 365 5th Ave, New York, NY, USA

    Madiha S. Muzammal & Emily A. Jones

Authors
  1. Madiha S. Muzammal
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  2. Emily A. Jones
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Correspondence to Madiha S. Muzammal or Emily A. Jones.

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Funding

This study does not have any funding source.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in the present study were reviewed and approved by Queens College, CUNY Institutional Review Board for the protection of human subjects in research and research related activities. All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from the parents of all the participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

Madiha Muzammal declares that she has no conflict of interest. Emily Jones declares that she has no conflict of interest.

Additional information

This research was conducted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree for Masters of Arts and pre-dissertation for Doctorate of Philosophy in Learning Processes and Behavior Analysis.

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Muzammal, M.S., Jones, E.A. Social-Communication Intervention for Toddlers with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Effects on Initiating Joint Attention and Interactions with Mother. J Dev Phys Disabil 29, 203–221 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-016-9519-8

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