Word Acquisition in Adolescents with Autism Using Video Modeling

Abstract

Autism is characterized by deficits in communication, which can include deficits in language and vocabulary acquisition. Video modeling has received support as an intervention to teach a variety of skills to children with autism, ranging from vocational and daily living skills to conversational speech and name-writing. This paper presents a brief review of the neural underpinnings of atypical language acquisition, and a novel study testing the effectiveness of a commercially available video modeling system for teaching vocabulary words to four adolescents with low-functioning autism, aged 16-20. The study employs a single case study multiple-baseline across students and multiple-baseline within student across modeling condition design. Results show no advantage of video modeling over in vivo modeling. While receptive mastery was achieved by one student in response to both video and in vivo modeling, no other students showed any receptive learning, and in each showed only modest expressive learning in response to in vivo modeling. In general, video modeling was not an effective technique for word acquisition under these parameters. Potential explanations for the deviation from the literature are discussed, as are limitations and future directions.