1. A Functional Approach to Social Skills Intervention for Young Students with Autism in Inclusive Settings
Maureen A. Conroy
Elizabeth L.W. McKenney
Brian A. Boyd
University of Florida
Supported by U.S. Department of Education
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (#H324D020023)

2. Objectives of Presentation
The participants in the session will learn:
A strategy for conducting informal functional assessment of social behaviors
Skills to link assessment information to the development of social skill interventions
Research-derived practices for addressing the social challenges of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD)

3. Presentation Outline
Provide overview of the literature on the social deficits of children with ASD
Provide a brief overview of our research study and its purpose: Project GATORSS
Describe methods for assessing the social behaviors of children with autism: Social Skills Interview (SSI) & Snapshot Assessment Tool (SAT)
Present a case study and video examples to facilitate participant understanding

4. Why Do Children with ASD Experience Social Skills Deficits?
Some common theories….
Theory of Mind: suggests that children with ASD have difficulty understanding and taking the perspectives of others (Tager-Flusberg, 2002)
Social Orienting: suggests that children with ASD have difficulty orienting to social stimuli (Mundy & Stella, 2000)
These are just theories!!!
Caregivers and practitioners need practical strategies

5. Why Examine the Social Behaviors of Children with ASD?
Children with ASD experience difficulty in three areas:
Behavioral excesses in display of restricted & repetitive behaviors
Behavioral deficits in display of developmentally and age-appropriate communication and social behaviors
Difficulty with social reciprocity is considered the central and defining feature of ASD (NRC, 2001)

6. Why Examine the Social Behaviors of Children with ASD (cont’d)?
Poor social skills and display of problem behaviors often interfere with successful inclusion in early childhood programs (Odom et al., in prep)
Placement in inclusive settings alone will not produce positive and lasting changes in the display of appropriate social behavior by children with ASD (McConnell, 2002)
We need evidence-based interventions to address and remediate their social skill deficits

7. Objectives of Project GATORSS
Overall goal….
To develop a process for decreasing the maladaptive social behaviors and increasing the prosocial behaviors of young children with ASD in early childhood settings.
Development of functional assessment techniques designed to address social skill deficits
Development of individualized social skill interventions using assessment-based behavioral intervention strategies

8. Method Multiphase Assessment Process 1. Descriptive Assessments
Social Skills Interview with primary caregivers and teachers
Snapshot Assessment Tool (adapted from Conroy & Brown, 2001)
6 observations conducted during opportunities for child with ASD to socially interact
Social Skills Observation form (adapted from Brown, Odom, & Buysee, 2000)
10-min observations of child with ASD in different social contexts (manipulative area, art, pretend play area)
Need to find out he name of the Project DATA form.
I think that is the name, but you can check the UW webpage. Another option is that we leave the DATA Social Skills Assessment off since we really don’t use that information for our descriptive assessment information process - right?

9. Method (cont’d) 2. Experimental Analyses 3. Interventions
Functional analyses (Iwata et al., 1982/1994)
Conditions: ignore, tangible, attention, escape, free play
Structural analyses (Cooper et al., 1990; Peck et al., 1997)
Conditions: amount of peer attention, preference for social activity/materials, type of directions
3. Interventions
Replacement of inappropriate social behaviors with development of appropriate social behaviors that match the outcomes and function of behaviors
Utilization of contextual factors that reduce the likelihood of inappropriate social behaviors and increase likelihood of appropriate social behaviors.

10. Focus on Descriptive Assessments
Social Skills Interview (SSI) (Asmus et al., 2003)
Indirect assessment
Snapshot Assessment Tool (SAT) (Conroy et al., 2003)
Direct observation measure

11. Case Study: Allen 5 years old Diagnosis
PDD-NOS
Communicates with simple sentences: Repeats phrases from movies and TV shows
Academically precocious: Teachers reported superior reading skills
Montessori Preschool: Fully Included
24 typically developing peers, including his younger brother
Child-directed philosophy
Behaviors of concern
Social withdrawal
Very limited interactions with peers across settings

12. Social Skills Interview (SSI)
Developed to find out from parents and practitioners
Communication abilities of child (e.g, verbal, nonverbal)
Current display of social behavior (e.g., maintain proximity, initiate)
Classroom settings/activities that permit social interaction and those settings/activities that promote/demote interaction
Classroom times when social behavior is appropriate
Antecedents of social behavior
Potential maintaining consequences of social behavior
Past and current intervention strategies
What has and what has not worked?

13. SSI Findings for Allen
Conducted a focus group interview with 6 preschool teachers and director
SSI Findings:
Communication abilities: Allen is verbal and speaks in short sentences
Social behavior: Allen rarely initiated or responded to peers
Settings that permit interaction: All
Settings that promote interaction: None, but Allen enjoys puzzles, books, and “Thomas the Train”
Settings that demote interaction: Sensory-based activities
Consequences: Self-reinforcement (enjoys being alone) and/or Escape
Intervention strategies: None

14. What Did We Learn from SSI?
Allen’s strengths:
Has the ability to verbally communicate
Has good play skills, but chooses to play alone
Allen’s needs:
Does not initiate or respond to peer’s
Contextual Factors:
Sensory-based activities decrease the likelihood of Allen engaging in social interactions
Enjoys playing puzzles, books, & Thomas the Train
Is this all we found out? Did it give us any more information than this that we could highlight or extrapolate from the interview?

15. Snapshot Assessment Tool (SAT)
Developed to allow practitioners to observe and gather information on child’s social strengths and needs
Purpose:
Identify the types of social behaviors the target child is engaging in with peers
Examine variables that surround occurrence of social behaviors
Identify the outcomes of social behaviors when they do occur

16. SAT Form Type & Form of Behavior
Context & Appropriate-ness of Behavior
Reciprocity of Exchange
Perceived Goal of Behavior
Actual Outcome

17. Context & Appropriateness of Behavior
SAT Definitions
Type and form of behavior
Describe behavior observed for child with ASD
Describe what behavior looked like
If teacher prompted social behavior note this as well
Context & appropriateness of play
State what play activity was (blocks, swing)
State if target child’s behavior was appropriate (both socially and developmentally)
Type & Form of Behavior
-Peer initiated
-Peer said, “You’re getting a snack.”
-Allen did not respond
Context & Appropriateness of Behavior
-Having a snack outside
-Behavior not socially appropriate
S & D refer to socially and developmentally appropriate. Do you think not responding is both socially and developmentally appropriate?

18. SAT Definitions (cont’d)
Reciprocity of Exchange
-No social reciprocity because Allen did not respond
-Peer initiation did not lead to a social interaction
Reciprocity of exchange
State whether target child’s behavior was reciprocated
Perceived goal of behavior
Describe goal you perceive the target child wanted (to obtain attention or a tangible, or to escape)
Actual outcome
State what outcome the child actually received
Perceived Goal of Behavior
-To escape social interaction
Actual Outcome
-Allen was successful in escaping the social interaction

19. SAT Procedures
Identify 3-5 activities when target child is most social or has the most opportunities for social interactions to occur. During each observation session, observe long enough to complete 1 form.
If no target child social behaviors have occurred within 15 minutes, stop the session and begin again on another day or at another time.
If no social behavior has been observed within 1 minute, stop and record “No social behavior” in the “type and form of behavior” column.
Summarize the data.

20. Important to Define Behaviors
Identify behaviors when child with ASD is with his peers:
Social initiation
Target child or peer behavior that attempts to elicit a social response, attention, or access objects/activities
Response to social initiations
Behavior that the target child or peers engage in to overtly acknowledge an initiation (e.g., a target child asks a peer to play and the peer joins him in play)
No response
Target child or peer ignores the initiator, and/or continues to engage in the same play behavior
Interaction
Sequence of 3 social behaviors between a target child and peer (initiation-response-interaction). The interaction begins with the third behavior in the sequence
Maureen, this is from the FLCEC presentation and I’m not sure what the first bullet is supposed to say?
Do my edits clarify it?

21. Completed SAT for Allen
I’m wondering if it makes sense to describe somewhere on this form what the target child is doing when no social behavior occurs? We haven’t really been doing it, but it might be something to think about?

22. SAT Findings for Allen Conducted 9 observations across 4 days
Collected data during free play and outdoor play activities
Baseline IOA:
Collected during 57% of sessions
Averaged 100%

23. Summarizing Allen’s Data
Brian,
I’m wondering if we need a slide up front that talks about functions of social behaviors - I’m not sure the audience will understand these functions?

24. Comparison of SSI to SAT
Allen rarely initiates
Allen does NOT interact for self-reinforcement or to escape
Allen likes puzzles and books
Allen rarely responds
SAT
Allen rarely initiates (26%)
Potential tangible function to his social behavior (86%)
Allen typically responded (80%)

25. Linking Assessment to Intervention
Allen rarely initiates, but has appropriate communication and play behaviors in his repertoire
Potential tangible function to his social behavior
He engages in social behavior to obtain access to toys- especially “Thomas the Train"
Social Story
Intervention
Have Allen choose a peer so he could read the story to him/her
Have Allen and peer “act out” scenario from the story during free play where there was access to tangible items that he likes (e.g., Thomas)

26. Function-based Intervention for Allen
Initial Intervention
Modified Social Story (Gray, 1995)
Social stories are written scenarios that provide social cues for children with ASD to facilitate appropriate behavior during social situations
Developed 3 social stories
How to initiate & respond to peers
How to share books with peers
How to share Thomas the Train with peers
I think we need a slide that links the intervention to the assesement. For example, we decided to use social story to teach Allen how to initiate. Since the function appeared to be tangible, we developed social sotries around tangible items, etc. What do you think?

27. Modified Intervention for Allen
Teacher noticed after 1 week that Allen’s initiations increased, but he was more likely to initiate if she prompted him
Teachers and research team decided to discontinue the social stories and use teacher prompting and praising
Revised Intervention
Specific prompts
To choose “what” to play with (e.g., Thomas the Train, puzzles, or books)Tangible Function
To select “who” to play withInitiations
To decide “how” to ask the peer to playInitiations
Did we get this information from our assessment - if so, we need to illustrate that somewhere in the assessment information - right

28. Intervention Findings for Allen
Collected data using 2 instruments:
Snapshot Assessment Tool (SAT)
Social Skills Observation form
10-s partial interval recording system to determine the % of time Allen engaged in social initiations, responses, & interactions during a 10-min time period
Collected data during free play activities only
Intervention IOA:
SAT
Collected during 33% of sessions
Averaged 95% (range: %)
Collected during 54% of the sessions
Averaged 97% (range: %)

29. Allen’s SAT Intervention Data

30. Social Skills Observation Form

31. Allen’s Social Skills Observation Intervention Data
I know this will be changed, but I just went ahead and included it.

32. Summarize Findings for Allen
Using SAT, Allen’s social initiations increased from 26% to 44%
Using Social Skills Observation, Allen’s sustained interactions with peers increased from .7% to 23%
Linking assessment information to the intervention allowed us to:
Narrow the range of possible intervention options
Tailor the intervention to Allen’s unique social skills deficits
Include in the intervention contextual factors that addressed his play behavior (e.g., puzzles) and potentially maintained his social behavior (i.e., access to tangible items)

33. SnapShot Practice Type & Form of Behavior
Context & Appropriate-ness of Behavior
Reciprocity of Exchange
Perceived Goal of Behavior
Actual Outcome
I thought we should show the form again before they were about to practice?
Yes and we should include it on our handouts.

34. Jenny 5 years old Diagnosis: Asperger’s syndrome
Based on Asperger’s Disorders Scale
Kindergarten: Included 79% of the day
IQ 80 with Developmental Profile II
Problem Behaviors
Screaming
Difficulty sharing toys
Communication
1-4 word sentences and gestures
Social Behavior
Socially passive

35. Jenny’s Social Behavior
Strengths
Engages in parallel play
Remains in proximity to peers
Responds to peers
Knows acceptable ways to join group
Plays cooperatively during simple games
Follows one-step directions
Improved play activities with socially mature peers
Needs
Does not initiate toward peers
Passively responds to peer initiations
Improve sharing and turn-taking behavior

36. Snapshot Findings for Jenny
5 observations to date
Summary
Initiated with peers during 10% of observation periods
Responded to peer initiations 75% of the time
Majority (86%) of social behavior was to maintain or gain access to a tangible item

37. SnapShot Practice

38. Next Steps for Allen & Jenny
Conduct experimental assessments
Functional Analyses (FA)
To verify function of social behavior
Structural Analyses (SA)
To determine additional contextual factors that effect the occurrence of social behavior
Link interventions to experimental assessment information
I like the blocks!

39. Snapshot Summary
Snapshot Assessment Tool is a descriptive observation instrument that can be used to identify
Variables when social behaviors occur
Did target child initiate?
When peer initiates what is target child’s response?
What is the context of the social situation?
Outcomes of social situations
What was the perceived goal of target child’s behavior?
What the did the target child actually achieve?
Utilize this information when developing experimental analyses or for preliminary interventions

40. What Are Some Potential Social Skills Interventions?
Based on work of National Research Council (2001)
Environmental Arrangement
Target Child Reinforcement
Peer Reinforcement

41. Environmental Arrangement
“Social” Groups
Inclusion of high status, socially-skilled peers (Sasso et al., 1998)
Structured, cooperative activities help to increase the social interactions of children with ASD (McConnell, 2002)
Decrease need for teacher involvement
Free play is hard for kids with autism

42. Example of a Structured Activity

43. Target Child Reinforcement
Identify what is reinforcing for the child (e.g., being alone, hand-flapping, a certain toy)
“Set-up” social situations with peers to provide opportunities for child to obtain the reinforcer
Reinforce the various components of social behavior
Social initiations
Social responses
Social interactions
Generalize behavior to more naturally occurring social situations

44. Peer-mediated Interventions
Reinforce peers for engaging in social behavior with target child
Individual contingencies
Provide reinforcement to each peer who engages in a prespecified social behavior directed to target child (e.g., greeting the child when they arrive to school)
Have peers self-monitor
Group contingencies
May include child with autism
Group reward for engaging in social behavior
Have group self-monitor
Peer buddies

45. Peer Self-Monitoring Form

46. Summary
Social skills literature has focused on specific intervention strategies not on methods to systematically assess the reasons or functions of those skill difficulties
Need to develop instruments that will provide information for experimental analyses of social skills behaviors
SnapShot Assessment Tool provides a researcher or practitioner a low tech method to obtain information about the child’s social behaviors (or lack of behaviors)
This information can be used to link assessment information to the development of interventions
All of this information will lead to the development of more effective and efficient interventions for young children with ASD to increase opportunities for meaningful inclusion

47. For More Information Contact us at autism@coe.ufl.edu
Check project website:
Is there a project website?
Yes, it is on the special education page - we can post this on there too if you want.

48. Are you interested in pursing a doctoral degree?
Come to the University of Florida!
Contact:
Thanks!