The effects of a token economy on students with autism

Students with autism have difficulty in their everyday environment. Life skills that come easily to others must be explicitly taught to individuals with autism. A literature review was conducted to explore life skills acquisition and token economies for students with autism. For this research project a group of students were selected from a self-contained autism program. The researcher used a token economy while the students practiced and learned their life skills more specifically their hygiene skills. The researcher measured the prompting levels and behaviors to determine if the token economy was an effective tool to assist the students in obtaining independence and decreasing problematic behaviors. The data that was collected showed an increase in independence for the students while learning their hygiene skills, but there was not a significant change in behaviors. It is hypothesized that using a token economy for students while learning life skills increased motivation but did not necessarily increase acquisition rates or decrease problematic behaviors.