| Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder that affects as many as 1 in 150 children. Children with autism demonstrate major deficits in language, imitation, and social skills. There is an extensive literature on operant conditioning procedures to establish an initial imitative repertoire in learners with autism (Baer and Sherman, 1964; Lovaas, Berberich, Perloff, & Schaefer, 1966; Baer, Peterson, & Sherman, 1967; Brigham & Sherman, 1968). The teaching of an initial generalized imitative repertoire is not sufficient to produce observational learning in unstructured ordinary environments for learners with autism. There is little empirical research on procedures to teach learners with autism to imitate selectively in ordinary environments. Learners with autism may fail to imitate peers in ordinary environments because they are not observing relevant discriminative stimuli or unprogrammed reinforcement contingencies that occasion imitative responding in ordinary environments by typically-developing learners. The purpose of the current study was to examine the extent to which imitative performances can be brought under the control of discriminative stimuli that occur in an ordinary environment in three learners with autism. A multiple-baseline-experimental design across participants with a graduated guidance and reinforcement treatment package was used to teach learners with autism to imitate a peer in a classroom. All three participants demonstrated generalized imitative performances. The procedures in the graduated guidance and reinforcement treatment package enabled the participant's imitative performances to be brought under the control of discriminative stimuli in an ordinary environment. |
