Date of Award:

8-2018

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Special Education and Rehabilitation Counseling

Department name when degree awarded

Special Education and Rehabilitation

Committee Chair(s)

Thomas S. Higbee

Committee

Thomas S. Higbee

Committee

Sarah E. Pinkelman

Committee

Timothy A. Slocum

Committee

Eadric Bressel

Committee

Tyra Sellers

Abstract

Young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) demonstrate behavioral deficits and excesses that can adversely affect their play skills. Teaching children with ASD to use activity schedules with embedded scripts have led to increased appropriate game play with other children with autism and typically developing peers; however, there is sparse research on promoting more dynamic social play in children with ASD. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of teaching the use of activity schedules with embedded scripts on the sociodramatic play of preschoolers with ASD with their typically developing peers. We also examined the extent to which we could remove scripts and schedule components and continue to observe appropriate sociodramatic play. Two participants with ASD quickly demonstrated high levels of sociodramatic play with their typically developing peers compared to baseline, and an additional participant with ASD demonstrated similar increases with procedural modifications. The participants also continued to show these increased levels after all scripts and nearly all components of the activity schedules were systematically removed, including during 1- and 2-week follow-up sessions. In addition, all participants engaged in additional unscheduled, yet contextually appropriate, sociodramatic play behaviors.

Checksum

5ff692f688f97bf1b853e59764ee216e

Download

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .