Research Summary by Michelle Rodgers

I am mentoring several professionals for their BCBA accreditation. In this process, they are required to read and review evidence-based practice in the literature. We thought it would be helpful to disseminate these reviews with parents and professionals. These are overviews of specific articles, not comprehensive literature reviews. I will post them up periodically. Enjoy.

Authors: Koegel, L.K., Koegel, R.L., Hurley, C., and Frea, W.D.

Title: Improving social skills and disruptive behavior in children with autism through self-management


Purpose of this study: To determine if self-management could be helpful in increasing social interactions and responses for children with autism, within the community, home, and school settings.


Participants: Four children with autism. These children had been identified, by caregivers, as unresponsive to other’s social initiations, even though they had at least the social skills of a three-year old. These children were also reported to engage in disruptive behaviors as a result of interactions initiated by others.


Settings: As a result, a clinic and community setting was used for each, while a home and setting and a home and school setting were used for two others.


Target behaviors: Making an appropriate response to social interactions of others through a verbal response within 3 seconds. An inappropriate response was defined as no response within 3 seconds, a response unrelated to question, or an echolalic response.


Procedure: A small wrist counter and edibles were used for the procedure. In order to teach the children how to self-manage, a clinician modeled an appropriate response to a question for each child. Then the clinician modeled how to make the indication through the wrist counter. Inappropriate interactions were also modeled and the clinician showed the child that a point could not be counted on the wrist counter. Once the child was wearing the wrist counter the clinician continued to model the procedure until prompts were faded. The children were reinforced for appropriate recording and this schedule of reinforcement was gradually thinned.
The children were also taught to reinforce themselves after a certain number of responses were recorded on the counter. The prompts for this procedure were also gradually faded. After these steps were mastered by the children, they were able to use this method of self-management in the other settings.


Results: The children had high percentages for recording appropriate responses and not recording inappropriate behavior. In addition to learning the self-management procedure relatively quickly, the children’s level of social interactions towards others increased in all settings. Disruptive behaviors were also lower after self-management was employed.


Implications: Self-management can be a successful technique to increase appropriate social interactions and decrease disruptive behavior in children with autism, who are functioning at or above the typical benchmarks for three-year-olds. This is a valid technique to decrease the amount of adult support that would otherwise be needed. Obviously, increased social skills allows for more social a