The diversity of children within the preschool classroom is dramatically changing as children with autism spectrum disorder are increasingly included within it. To engage in the benefits of inclusion, social skills are needed. Yet, children with autism commonly experience difficulties in this area. Extant literature indicates that social skills are more successfully acquired when taught through naturalistic and embedded instruction in established routines. A commonly occurring routine in most classroom, home, and community settings is mealtime. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Snack Talk, a visual communication support, for increasing the communication engagement of five preschool children with autism. A reversal design across participants was used to analyze the relation between Snack Talk and conversation engagement. Results from the maintenance probes show that conversation engagement increased across all participants when compared to baseline. Furthermore, a functional relation was established between the teaching phase (baseline and intervention data collection phases) and the maintenance phase. Limitations and directions for further research are also discussed.
Coaching caregivers of young children on the autism spectrum is a critical component of parent-mediated interventions. Little information is available about how providers implement parent coaching for children on the autism spectrum in publicly funded early intervention systems. This study evaluated providers' use of parent coaching in an early intervention system. Twenty-five early intervention sessions were coded for fidelity to established caregiver coaching techniques. We found low use of coaching techniques overall, with significant variability in use of coaching across providers. When providers did coach caregivers, they used only a few coaching strategies (e.g., collaboration and in-vivo feedback). Results indicate that targeted training and implementation strategies focused on individual coaching components, instead of coaching more broadly, may be needed to improve the use of individual coaching strategies. A focus on strengthening the use of collaboration and in-vivo feedback may be key to improving coaching fidelity overall.

