Effects of video modeling alone and with self-management on compliment-giving behaviors of children with high-functioning ASD

Children with high- functioning autism spectrum disorders (ASD) typically exhibit a lack of social reciprocity skills. They often struggle to maintain conversations, especially with topics of little or no interest to them, and to create meaningful relationships. By giving compliments to others, children with ASD have a means by which to show approval for issues of interest to others. Video modeling has been shown to be effective in teaching social behaviors, particularly when it is followed by additional practice, prompts, and role playing. This study, involving two experiments, focused on teaching compliment-giving responses and initiations through video modeling with embedded, explicit rules for giving compliments in the place of additional procedures following video viewing. A multiple-baseline design across participants revealed that video modeling with explicit rules served to produce and maintain compliments of the "response" type. Video modeling with the addition of contrived reinforcement contingencies served to produce compliment-giving initiations in the presence of a teacher who monitored the children's behavior. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the inclusion of self-management strategies increased the children's independence in the monitoring of their compliment-giving initiations. Experimental results pointed to the use of self-management as a means by which to produce social initiations when video modeling alone fails.