Parent-implemented Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBIs), rooted from applied behavioral and developmental sciences, focus on empowering families by training and coaching natural change agents to embed evidence-based strategies during regular events or contexts (e.g., play time). No research, however, has relied on…

Adolescents with autism often experience pronounced difficulties with social communication, and novel interventions designed to improve core abilities are greatly needed. This study examines if providing immediate video feedback, an extension of video self-modeling, can aid adolescents with autism to self-identify strengths and irregularities from…

This study examined facial expressions produced during a British Sign Language (BSL) narrative task (Herman et al., International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders 49(3):343-353, 2014) by typically developing deaf children and deaf children with autism spectrum disorder. The children produced BSL versions of a video story in which…

Previous electromyographic studies have reported that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) exhibited atypical patterns of facial muscle activity in response to facial expression stimuli. However, whether such activity is expressed in visible facial mimicry remains unknown. To investigate this issue, we videotaped facial responses in…

Diminished attending to faces may contribute to the impairments in emotion recognition and expression in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study evaluated the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of an attention modification intervention designed to attenuate deficits in facial emotion recognition (FER). During the…

The literature suggests that many individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience challenges with recognizing and describing emotions in others, which may result in difficulties with the verbal expression of empathy during communication. Thus, there is a need for intervention techniques targeting this area. Using a multiple…

This study examined the efficacy of video self modeling (VSM) using feedforward, to teach various goals of a picture exchange communication system (PECS). The participants were two boys with autism and one man with Down syndrome. All three participants were non-verbal with no current functional system of communication; the two children had long…

It has been proposed that mentalising involves retrodicting as well as predicting behaviour, by inferring "previous" mental states of a target. This study investigated whether retrodiction is impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Participants watched videos of real people reacting to the researcher behaving in one…

Deficits in question-asking are common in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Furthermore, their opportunities to self-initiate questions are often hindered by directive behavior of their conversation partners. This study assessed the effectiveness of staff training in pivotal response treatment (PRT) on staff member-created…

Stalking behavior among some students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) is of concern both for the individual being stalked as well as the student with ASDs. This manuscript reviews effective interventions based upon functional assessment and appropriate positive behavior supports. Specific interventions for addressing staking behavior by…

The perception of intent in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) often relies on synthetic animacy displays. This study tests intention perception in ASD via animacy stimuli derived from human motion. Using a forced choice task, 28 participants (14 ASDs; 14 age and verbal-I.Q. matched controls) categorized displays of Chasing, Fighting, Flirting,…

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have difficulty recognizing emotions in themselves and others. Three children (all males) participated in the study. In a multi-element design children with ASD were trained to tact situation-based emotions (i.e., "happy", "sad", "angry", and "afraid") using novel video based scenarios. To…

Prior studies have indicated brain abnormalities underlying social processing in autism, but no fMRI study has specifically addressed the differential processing of direct and averted gaze, a critical social cue. Fifteen adolescents and adults with autism and 14 typically developing comparison participants viewed dynamic virtual-reality videos…

This study investigated whether individuals with ASD (autistic spectrum disorders) are able to identify driving hazards, given their difficulties processing social information, Klin et al. ("Archives of General Psychiatry" 59: 809-816, 2002). Twenty-three adult males with ASD and 21 comparison participants viewed 10 video clips containing driving…

This study evaluated "The Transporters", an animated series designed to enhance emotion comprehension in children with autism spectrum conditions (ASC). n = 20 children with ASC (aged 4-7) watched "The Transporters" everyday for 4 weeks. Participants were tested before and after intervention on emotional vocabulary and emotion recognition at three…