A Case Study Of Using Picture Book Teaching In A Preschool Inclusive Education Setting To Intervene In The Peer Interaction Skills Of Young Children With Mild Autism

Autism,also known as autism.Autism was first designated as a pervasive developmental disorder in the DSM-III in 1980.Its basic features are social impairment,communication impairment,and often stereotyped behavior.For young children with autism,social barriers prevent social integration,and peer interaction is an important aspect of social interaction.Currently,there is a trend toward inclusive education,which provides more opportunities for peer interaction for young children with autism,as well as the opportunity to observe and learn from the peer interaction of ordinary children.For young children,the visual,fun and vivid nature of picture books is more easily accepted,understood and enjoyed.Picture book teaching refers to the use of picture books as a vehicle for teaching and learning,and the educational values contained in picture books are conveyed to children through certain teaching procedures to help them develop.Research has shown that teaching through picture books can improve the social skills,speech development,and emotional-emotional development of young children with special needs.In this study,a young child with mild autism was selected as a subject in an inclusive kindergarten,and a single-quilt cross-behavioral multiple baseline experimental design was used to intervene on the subject’s peer interaction skills.The intervention process consisted of a baseline period,an intervention period,and a maintenance period.Through the pre-test and interviews with parents and teachers,"greeting","saying thank you","asking for help" and "active sharing" were identified as the target behaviors for the intervention." were identified as the target behaviors for the peer interaction intervention.Eight picture books were selected as intervention materials based on the subjects and the children in their inclusion classes.A combination of group and individual instruction was used to teach the subjects for a3-month teaching intervention.At the end of the intervention,based on the results of the intervention,post-tests and interviews with their parents and teachers were administered to the subjects,and the effects of the peer interaction intervention were found to be significant.The conclusions were as follows:First,the significant differences between the subjects’ four target behaviors on pre and post tests suggest that picture book instruction in an inclusion context has good effects on the peer interaction skills of children with mild autism.Second,the intervention effects of different target behaviors varied among the subjects.Among them,"saying thank you" and "asking for help" behaviors were the most effective,followed by "greeting" behaviors,and finally,"active sharing" behaviors.The second most effective behavior was the "greeting" behavior,followed by the "sharing" behavior.Third,later in the intervention,subjects showed a generalization of the peer interaction behavior of "active helping".