Using video modeling to teach perspective taking to children with autism

Perspective taking refers to the ability to determine mental states of others in order to explain or predict behavior. in typically developing children, this skill appears around age 4 years (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1985), but it is delayed or absent in children with autism. In the present study, video modeling was used to teach perspective taking to three children with autism. A multiple-baseline design across children and within child across tasks was used to assess learning. Generalization across untrained similar stimuli was also assessed. Video modeling was a fast and effective tool for teaching perspective-taking tasks to children with autism, resulting in both stimulus and response generalization. These results concurred with previous research that perspective taking can be taught. Unlike other studies, however, wider ranges of generalization were found.