Date of Award

8-2008

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Linda LeBlanc

Second Advisor

Dr. James Carr

Third Advisor

Dr. Wayne Fuqua

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

Video modeling is an instructional technique demonstrated to effectively increase social skills, academic skills, daily living skills and play skills of children with autism. There are several hypotheses for why video modeling is effective. One hypothesis is that children with autism prefer watching videos to looking at people, thereby enhancing motivation and making attending to the video model automatically reinforcing, however, preference for video has not been experimentally examined. This study assessed participants' preference for either video modeling or in vivo modeling using a concurrent-chains arrangement. None of the three participants showed a preference for either video modeling or in vivo modeling. Also, participants showed similar performance and attention to the model for both of the modeling conditions. The results suggest that not all children with autism prefer video modeling, in contrast to the widely held hypothesis.

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