Teaching complex social skills to children with autism: Advances of video modelling

TEACHING COMPLEX SOCIAL SKILLS TO CHILDREN
WITH AUTISM: ADVANCES OF VIDEO MODELlING

Christos K. Nikopoulos & Panagiota Nikopoulou-Smyrni

Notwithstanding the fact that the diagnosis of autism is becoming more standardized (Volkmar, Lord, Bailey, Schultz, & Klin, 2004), even today, a generally accepted definition is hard to find (e.g., Baird, Cass, & Slonims, 2005). However, all definitions identify impaired ability for social interaction and communication as well as idiosyncratic behaviours and deficits. Specifically, the term autism is used to describe a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by severe impairments in several areas of development including reciprocal social interaction skills, communication skills and
the presence of restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interests and activities (e.g., American Psychiatric Association, 2000; Damasio & Maurer, 1978;
Happé & Frith, 1996; Mundy, Sigman, Ungerer, & Sherman, 1986; Sweeten, Posey, Shekhar, & McDougle, 2002). In particular, the presence of deficits in the area of social interaction was the main reason that Kanner (1943) chose the term autism to describe a group of 11 children who demonstrated relatively common characteristics, different from those that appeared in the diagnosis of schizophrenia or
childhood psychosis. Since then, social deficits have retained a prominent position in diagnostic systems (e.g., American Psychiatric Association, 2000; World Health Organization, 1992) and many researchers have suggested that social impairments are the most critical element in the definition of this disorder (e.g., Anderson, Moore, Godfrey, & Fletcher-Flinn, 2004; Carter, Davis, Klin, & Volkmar, 2005; Constantino et al., 2003; Ruble, 2001; Scattone, 2007; Volkmar, Carter, Sparrow, & Cicchetti, 1993). Even during the first months of life, children with autism may not engage in simple social behaviours such as eye gaze, smiles, or responses to parents’ efforts at verbalisation and play interaction (Hobson & Lee, 1998; Koegel & Koegel, 1999; Swettenham et al., 1998). Although, a variety of different treatment procedures have been designed, assessed, and evaluated to address these deficits a persistent problem remains; the establishment of more complex social behaviours. For example, it is a usual
phenomenon that a child with autism may need continuous adult prompting to complete a sequence of already learned activities (MacDuff, Krantz, & McClannahan, 1993). Although there has been a corresponding explosion of literature regarding the treatment of the social deficits in autism, the establishment of more complex social behaviours still remains a challenge. Video modelling appears as one approach to have the potential to successfully address this challenge. Following an introduction to modeling that constitutes the basis of this procedure, the current paper explores those video modeling studies that have targeted the promotion of complex
social skills. It is suggested that this approach could be an effective addition to peer-mediated treatment procedures, especially for children with autism who cannot always be in environments where peers are present. Further, the likely success of video modeling seems to be dependent upon the prior elimination of behavioirs that interfere with the development of imitation skills