The Impact of Social Scripts and Visual Cues on Verbal Communication in Three Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Social script and visual cue use with students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) were examined. A multiple baseline design across activities with embedded withdrawal was used to measure student acquisition of verbal communication skills. Three children with ASD, two boys and one girl, were taught a series of scripts and were shown a “quiet” picture when they engaged in perseverative speech (e.g., repetitive phrases or words). The number of scripted statements increased during treatment, with reductions in perseverative speech for all three students. One student's unscripted statements increased during intervention. Analysis of percentage of nonoverlapping data indicated that the intervention was highly effective for scripted statements, ineffective for unscripted statements, and produced variable results for total communicative statements.