Beyond Trial Counts: Considerations for Measuring Play and Engagement During Early Intervention for Autistic Children

Play is critical to child development. In early childhood, object play evolves from exploratory behavior to complex symbolic play. Engagement during play, particularly joint engagement, is essential for learning and social interaction. Board Certified Behavior Analysts® (BCBAs) who provide early int...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Behavior analysis in practice 2024-12, Vol.17 (4), p.1216-1227
Main Authors: Raulston, Tracy J., Ousley, Ciara L., Hinton, Emily M., Ramirez, Andrea M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Autistic children
Behavior
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Communication
Dolls
Intervention
Psychology
Skills
Teaching
Technical and Tutorials
Toys
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Summary:Play is critical to child development. In early childhood, object play evolves from exploratory behavior to complex symbolic play. Engagement during play, particularly joint engagement, is essential for learning and social interaction. Board Certified Behavior Analysts® (BCBAs) who provide early intervention services to young autistic children may experience barriers when designing programming and data collection systems for play and engagement. In this paper, we compare Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Intervention (NDBI) and Natural Environment Teaching (NET) approaches. Considerations for measuring object play and engagement during naturalistic play routines are presented. We encourage BCBAs to consider simple frequency counts when measuring object play actions and interval recording or rating scales for tracking engagement states. These methods may better accommodate the variability in play and engagement behavior, allow for more flexible play routines, and support a more nuanced analysis of child progress.
ISSN:1998-1929
2196-8934
DOI:10.1007/s40617-024-01002-3