Houghton, Kat and Schuchard, Julia and Lewis, Charlie and Thompson, Cynthia (2013) Promoting child-initiated social-communication in children with autism. Journal of Communication Disorders, 46 (5-6). 495–506. ISSN 1873-7994
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Abstract
This study examined the effects of the Son-Rise Program (SRP), an intensive treatment aimed to improve child-initiated social communication in children with autism. Six children between the ages of 47 and 78 months were provided with 40 h of SRP, with pre- to post-treatment behavioral changes tested using a novel passive interaction probe task. Results showed an increase in the frequency of spontaneous social orienting and gestural communication for the experimental children, compared to six age- and behaviorally-matched control children with autism. In addition, for the children who received treatment, the duration of social dyadic interactions and total time spent engaged in social interaction increased from pre- to post-treatment. These findings suggest that intensive intervention focused on fostering child-initiated interaction increases social-communicative behaviors in children with autism. Learning outcomes: Readers will be able to describe the principles underlying the Son-Rise Program, a developmental approach to treatment for autism. Readers will be able to explain the methods of the investigation of a 5-day intensive Son-Rise Program and the results that report change in social communication in children with autism.