Education and Treatment of Children

We compared the effects of a commercially-available children's video relative to an instructor-created video model on the acquisition of play skills with three children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Each participant was exposed to one commercially-available video model for one play scenario and one instructor-created video for a different play scenario and the resulting number of actions and vocalizations were recorded. Two children learned more rapidly using the instructor-created video format and the third had similar acquisition rates in both conditions. Additionally, participants attended to video and toys equally across the two video formats. Results are discussed as they relate to use of instructor created videos to teach play.