Behavior Skills Training with Voice-Over Video Modeling

ABSTRACT

The present study used behavior skills training (BST) to teach three adult participants to implement a video modeling intervention aimed at teaching social skills to adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). During baseline trials, participants were given access to written instructions before role-play with two actors (who simulated a quiet conversation) and one confederate (who played the role of an adult with ASD). During treatment, participants were given a video model with voice-over instruction depicting how to implement the video modeling intervention to teach social skills, repeated roleplay trials, and feedback following their performance. All participant scores (percentage of steps correctly implemented in each session) increased from baseline to treatment, and generalization was demonstrated with an actual consumer diagnosed with ASD. Additionally, after training participants to use a video model to teach one social skill, there was generalization to teaching as many as three additional novel social skills. Participants showed maintenance of skills during a treatment study that involved training adult clients with ASD to engage in the social skills.

KEYWORDS:

• autism
• video modeling
• social skills

Acknowledgments

We thank all the families who participated in this study, without whom this research could not have been conducted. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NIMH grant R34MH104407, Services to Enhance Social Functioning in Adults with autism spectrum disorder (Brodkin, PI).