Improving Communication Ability of a Child with Selective Mutism Through “Kita Semua Sahabat” Training

Selective Mutism (SM) is characterized by failure to speak at some period of time in specific social situations (e.g., at school), but can talk in other familiar situations (home). This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of ‘Kita Semua Sahabat’ in improving communication skills in children with SM. The subject was a 5 year-old boy who had been diagnosed based on DSM-V. The research design was a single case experimental design. Interventions were performed using the technique of stimulus fading and contingency management which were packed through the training of ‘Kita Semua Sahabat’. The result showed that there was a significant increase, and communication with stimulus (prompts) had a greater increase than communication without stimulus (child’s initiation). The research showed that Training ‘Kita Semua Sahabat’ is effective to increase communication among children with SM, and more frequent verbal communication happens if more stimuli were given to the child.

Further Evaluation of a Practitioner Model for Increasing Eye Contact in Children With Autism

Cook et al. recently described a progressive model for teaching children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to provide eye contact with an instructor following a name call. The model included the following phases: contingent praise only, contingent edibles plus praise, stimulus prompts plus contingent edibles and praise, contingent video and praise, schedule thinning, generalization assessments, and maintenance evaluations. In the present study, we evaluated the extent to which modifications to the model were needed to train 15 children with ASD to engage in eye contact. Results show that 11 of 15 participants acquired eye contact with the progressive model; however, eight participants required one or more procedural modifications to the model to acquire eye contact. In addition, the four participants who did not acquire eye contact received one or more modifications. Results also show that participants who acquired eye contact with or without modifications continued to display high levels of the behavior during follow-up probes. We discuss directions for future research with and limitations of this progressive model.

Prompting Strategies for those with a Severe Mental Handicap: A Comparison of Procedures Using only Response Prompts with a Procedure Combining Stimulus and Response Prompts

Prompts are assessed in terms of their ability to convey an understanding of the task to those with a severe mental handicap. On this basis, it is suggested that the most effective strategy for teaching manipulative tasks to this group may be one which combines stimulus and response prompts. Two case studies compared this procedure with two procedures which used response prompts only. The combined procedure was more effective in both studies. The studies also demonstrated the applicability of stimulus prompts to teaching the motor, as well as the visual, components of manipulative tasks.