Date of Award:

5-2015

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Special Education and Rehabilitation

Committee Chair(s)

Thomas S. Higbee

Committee

Thomas S. Higbee

Committee

Robert Morgan

Committee

Timothy A. Slocum

Committee

Tyra Sellers

Committee

Nicole Pyle

Abstract

Children with autism spectrum disorder have difficulties with social and play skills. The purpose of this study was to determine if three young children with autism could learn to play a complex social game, hide-and-seek, with three typically developing peers. Participants were taught to play hide-and-seek using photographic activity schedules. Photographic activity schedules are a type of visual schedule that teach children with autism to engage in chains of behavior. Two schedules were present during
teaching sessions, a seeker schedule and a hider schedule. Each group member played the role of the seeker once during the game. The three participants, and typically developing peers, were able to play hide-and-seek when the schedules were present. We then introduced a systematic fading procedure to identify if the children would continue to play the game without the schedules. The three participants required some form of the schedule to play the game, however the majority of components were faded. They were still able to play hide-and-seek, with the faded version of the schedule, in a novel environment and 2-weeks after the treatment sessions ended. Our results indicated that young children with autism can play complex games with minimal prompts.

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166299d657f663a85d3102502c77cca5

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