Research: Improving Social Initiations in Young Children with Autism Using Reinforcers with Embedded Social Interactions

Authored by Koegel, RL, Vernon TW, and Koegel LK in J Autism Dev Disord, Volume 39, Issue 9, p. 1240-1251, (2009).

Article summary (posted May 6, 2010):

Children with autism who are rewarded with social interactions during therapy may learn to seek out and initiate social interactions.

The purpose of this study was to see if social exchange could be used to as a reinforcer during speech therapy. This means that rather than giving a reward, the therapist provides social exchange as the reward. The data show that speech therapy sessions with social exchanges helped the child to be more engaged and have higher affect ratings. The authors hope that teaching social exchange will also improve speech and behavior. They also hope that helping children to learn to connect with the therapist will help the child learn to connect with other children.

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You can access the original abstract and the complete paper is sometimes available for free via Google Scholar (look for entries that say "PDF" or "HTML" on the right side of the page).
autism, reinforce, reinforcer, speech therapy, therapist, therapy
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