Abstract:

Background:
In the field of communication, we divide expressive verbal skills into requesting and declarative. The mand repertoire, ie spontaneous requests, is fundamental for the development of functional communication. The mand in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) represents the verbal operant who is under the control of motivation and which specifies the desired object (reinforcement). In particular, the information mand (or request) specifies the information as reinforcement. In this study we wanted to investigate the use of videomodeling (VMC) versus vocal prompting (VCPC) strategies to teach spontaneous inquiries to children with level 2 autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

Methods:
We compared two different teaching conditions: Video Modeling Condition (VMC) and Vocal Model Prompt Condition (VCPC). The participants were 24 children with ASD aged between 4.5 and 5 years: the subjects were divided into two groups of 12 each.

Results:
The use of videomodeling to teach information request has been shown to have given good results. In fact, the subjects treated with videomodeling showed a better acquisition in terms of time and success rate. Some children, on the other hand, have shown difficulty in discriminating the echoic prompt and in general have shown a slower acquisition.

Conclusions:
The use of videomodeling has shown better results in terms of acquisition and generalization; this is confirmed as a good practice to be used also for teaching complex skills to children with ASD.

Keywords:

Videomodeling, videoprompt, videobased procedures, Mand for Information, Autism