The Effects Of Pivotal Response Treatment On Verbal Communication Skills Of Preschool Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Deficits in social interaction and communication is one of the two core diagnostic features of autism spectrum disorder(ASD),which has a negative effect on their study,life,and social engagement.As the most common and convenient way of communication,verbal communication plays an important role in social communication.The development of verbal communication is generally slow or retrogressive in children with ASD,which brings severe negative effects on their study,life adaptation and social engagement.Children with ASD who have poor verbal communication shills tend to exhibit more challenging behaviors.Therefore,promoting verbal communication is an important goal of early intervention for children with ASD.Comparing domestic and international researches on intervention on verbal communication in preschool children with ASD,it is found that international researches pay more attention to the development of children’s functional language in natural environment,and gradually explore the training of children’s important others(such as parents)to master intervention technology or strategies to promote children’s verbal communication skills.As a widely accepted intervention technique supported by evidence-based practice,pivotal response treatment(PRT)plays an active role in promoting the social communication skill in children with ASD by developing social motivation or other pivotal areas.Recently,PRT has been widely used in verbal communication intervention for children with ASD.Through combing the domestic and international studies of using PRT to promote verbal communication skills in preschool children,it is found that there is only one study in China.Besides,there are some limitations,such as the lack of interventionist fidelity,the lack of social validity and the neglect of the importance of parental intervention.Based on previous researches,this study adopted PRT and parents participating in intervention in the Chinese cultural background.An ABA single-case design was conducted in this study.This study examined the effect of motivation strategy of PRT on promotion and maintenance of verbal communication skills for two preschoolers with ASD,which is expected to provide some practical significance for the application of PRT in China.The results of this study are as follows:(1)After the participants accepted PRT,the frequency functional verbal utterances of participant A and B was increased,and they showed good immediate,maintenance and generalized effects.(2)After the participants accepted PRT,the verbal responsivity of participant A and B was increased,and they showed good immediate,maintenance and generalized effects.(3)After the participants accepted PRT,the number of verbal initiation act of participant A and B was increased,and they showed good immediate,maintenance and generalized effects.(4)After the participants accepted PRT,the MLU of participant A and B was increased.(5)After the participants accepted PRT,both participant A and B showed a decrease in restricted and repetitive behavior,with the improvement of the ritualistic behavior and the sameness behavior being the most obvious.In summary,the results of this study suggest that the motivational procedure of PRT is helpful to improve the verbal communication skills and reduced restricted and repetitive behaviors of preschool children with ASD,the importance of parental involvement as an intervention principle in PRT was also verified.This study provides data to support the validity of pivotal area theory in PRT in the context of Chinese culture,and helps to promote the application and development of verbal communication intervention for preschool children with ASD in China,it also provides reference and suggestion for parents and teachers of children with ASD to choose intervention strategies.