Applying Computer Technology to Teach Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder to Initiate Requests for Assistance

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to evaluate whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were able to initiate requests for assistance by applying computer technology to the specific instructional procedure, which included behaviour chain interruption, time delay, prompting, and differential reinforcement. New software was developed in this study so that the instructional procedure could be conducted automatically by a computer device. A multiple baseline across participants design was adopted in this study, including one baseline phase and two intervention phases. Results show that the number of spontaneous requests made by three participants increased gradually. The findings demonstrate the feasibility of combining computer technology with the specific instructional procedure for teaching the participants to take the initiative to request assistance.

KEYWORDS:

• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
• computer technology
• instructional procedure
• behavior chain interruption
• time delay
• prompting
• reinforcement
• spontaneous request
• initiate requests for assistance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, R.O.C. (Republic of China) [MOST 105-2511-S-259-001].