Online Practitioner Training in Behavioral Intervention in Autism Skill Training Using an Interactive Simulated Child

Project Summary Autism Spectrum Disorder ASD is a complex neurological disorder that typically appears before the age of three and immediately and profoundly affects a young childandapos s ability to communicate develop language form social relationships and respond appropriately to environmental cues Behavioral intervention is a consensus andquot best practiceandquot scientific treatment methodology derived from the field of Applied Behavior Analysis that focuses on providing rigorous and sustained one to one and natural context treatment to teach developmental skills such as attending imitation receptive language expressive language pre academic social and self help skills BI based teaching interventions are highly structured and they typically employ a number of procedures to begin teaching critical developmental prerequisite skills related to language motor and discrimination training These include Discrete Trial Training Shaping Fading Chaining Differential Reinforcement and other methodologies all used by practitioners to foster learning This project will develop a simulated interactive virtual child as a teaching tool for teachers and practitioners who are learning complex behavioral training procedures For this Phase project we will focus our effort on teaching Discrete Trial Training as a means of testing the feasibility of the product in preparation for a Phase II submission The project has two major objectives to design and develop a prototype of the product and to evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype Project Narrative The proposed project and the resulting product will directly benefit individuals who provide behavioral intervention services to children with autism spectrum disorders and other developmental disabilities The project has two major objectives The project has two major objectives to design and develop a simulated interactive virtual child as a teaching tool for teachers and practitioners who are learning complex behavioral training procedures and to evaluate the effectiveness of the product