Harris S L, Wolchik S A, Weitz S
J Autism Dev Disord. 1981 Dec;11(4):373-84. doi: 10.1007/BF01531613.
The mothers and fathers of 11 preschool autistic children were taught operant procedures used in teaching speech to nonverbal children. The children's speech skills were assessed twice before and once after their parents were trained. At posttreatment, the children showed significant gains in prespeech and speech skills as measured by a 21-step hierarchy of speech behaviors. Those children who had acquired at least verbal imitative skill after training made greater progress than those who had not. Although children maintained their gains in a 1-year follow-up assessment, there was no evidence of significant improvement beyond that achieved at the end of training. The importance of support for parents in continuing to do formal "teaching" after the training program ends was stressed.
11名学龄前自闭症儿童的父母学习了用于向非语言儿童教授言语的操作性程序。在父母接受培训之前，对这些孩子的言语技能进行了两次评估，培训之后进行了一次评估。在治疗后，通过一个由21个步骤组成的言语行为层次结构来衡量，孩子们在言语前技能和言语技能方面都有显著提高。那些在训练后至少获得了言语模仿技能的孩子比没有获得的孩子取得了更大的进步。尽管孩子们在1年的随访评估中保持了他们的进步，但没有证据表明在训练结束后有显著的进一步改善。强调了在培训项目结束后支持父母继续进行正式“教学”的重要性。
