Script Training with Storybooks and Puppets

The development of effective social-communicative behavior is possibly the most critical set of skills required for successful integration into family and community life. Most young children develop social interaction skills without specific instruction or intervention, however, for children with autism social dysfunction is the single most defining feature of the disorder and possibly the most disabling as well. With increased social and educational opportunities provided to young children with disabilities in inclusive environments, delays in social and communicative behavior, make it more difficult for children with autism to gain maximum social and educational benefit. Without direct intervention the impact of poor social skills is substantial for children with autism. Earlier social skills interventions for young children with special needs employed such strategies as adult directed teaching, shaping of child behaviors by typical peers within natural environments, and adult instruction using scripts. Although these interventions often resulted in positive changes in children’s social behavior, it was evident that when children with autism did acquire appropriate social skills they often did not use them in a spontaneous manner or generalize their use to situations where behavior is not cued by physical or verbal prompts such as within an inclusive classroom environment. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the use of script training to teach socio-dramatic play skills to increase the frequency and quality of social interaction behaviors of preschool children with autism in an inclusive classroom environment. Scripts were embedded in storybooks and triads of children learned to enact each script using puppets. The children’s social initiations and responses were also monitored on a regular basis during the generality sessions that occurred during the classroom’s play schedule time. The intervention package used was found to be acceptable and sustainable in the inclusive environment with available resources.The specific dependent variables measured were theme related verbal or nonverbal initiations and responses, initiations and responses that were an elaboration of the scripts or unrelated to the scripts, non-social behavior, and targeted facilitative responses involving puppet manipulation. Additionally, measures of procedural integrity, accuracy, and social validity were collected. The results of this study indicated that preschool children with autism were successful in learning the socio-dramatic scripts and acting them out with their peers. All of the target children were able to do this with low rates of adult prompting. All of the children also demonstrated increased social interactions with trained and untrained peers during generality sessions.