Teaching Young Children With Autism: When Not to Cooperate With Instructions

Although many studies have focused on increasing cooperation among children with autism, very little research exists on teaching children with autism to discriminate when they should and should not cooperate with an adult-delivered instruction. Refusing to cooperate with some instructions in some contexts could prevent a child from becoming a victim of sexual or other forms of abuse. In this U.S. study, we used behavioral skills training with video modeling to teach three children with autism to discriminate the conditions under which they should not follow an instruction to remove their shirt. A multiple-baseline design was used to evaluate the effects of the procedure. The procedures were effective for all participants. We discuss the results in terms of teaching general self-advocacy skills to this population.