USING BEHAVIOR MODIFICATIONS TO TEACH RESPONDING TO JOINT ATTENTION TO PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER

Joint Attention (JA) is defined as the act of sharing an item or experience with another person. This is a major deficit in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and there is limited research on interventions that use single case design to show a functional relationship on teaching responding to joint attention and initiating joint attention. The current study uses a multiple baseline design with baseline sessions intermittent between teaching phases to show experimental control. This study employs the intervention package created by Whalen and Schreibman (2003) using pivotal response training and discrete trial training to teach responding to joint attention. Consistent with previous research on JA, the three participants showed low levels of responding to JA in baseline sessions. The findings do not support the literature suggesting that behavior modifications are not effective in teaching the responding to joint attention skill in preschool children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.