Effects of intervention using everyday routines on the social reciprocity of children with autism

Children with autism often have deficits in social reciprocity, the ability to participate in long chains of back and forth interactions with a social partner. Research has shown that deficits in social communication skills, such as social reciprocity, can have lifelong negative impacts on the lives of individuals with autism. Routines-based intervention for young children with autism is supported by research and educational law. However, there are limited studies showing the effects of routines-based intervention for children with autism. There are no studies that address social reciprocity using routines-based intervention for children with autism. This preliminary investigation explored if parent training on six strategies to promote social reciprocity within three everyday routines would increase the parents' use of the strategies and also increase the social reciprocity of the children. The investigation also explored if weekly parent coaching conferences utilizing a video-stimulated recall protocol would further enhance the parent use of the strategies and the social reciprocity of the children. Lastly, maintenance data was taken to measure whether or not the effects of the intervention remained four weeks after the removal of the weekly parent coaching conferences.; Three mothers and their young children with autism participated in this study. Results indicated that two of the three parents showed increases in the use of the strategies following the training. Two of the three parents showed increases in the use of the strategies while receiving the weekly parent coaching conferences. One of the three participants showed increases in the child's social reciprocity after the parent received the training. The weekly parent coaching conferences resulted in significant increases in the social reciprocity of the child for one of the three participants. Although there were minimal increases in the social reciprocity of the children for Beverly and Christine during the weekly coaching conferences, it was not until the addition of a third intervention (immediate modeling and coaching) that the increases became significant. Parent use of the strategies and the social reciprocity of the children were maintained after the intervention was withdrawn.