The effects of video modeling in teaching functional living skills to persons with ASD: A meta-analysis of single-case studies

• This study is a meta-analytic review of video modeling interventions for improving functional living skills of individuals with ASD.
• A total of 23 studies were included in this review which met the Basic Design Standards developed by WWC (Kratochwill et al., 2010).
• The Tau-U effect size was calculated to analyze learners’ age, diagnosis, intervention type, and target outcome.
• In overall, video modeling interventions have been found to have moderate effects on improving functional living skills of individuals with ASD.

BackgroundMany individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show deficits in functional living skills, leading to low independence, limited community involvement, and poor quality of life. With development of mobile devices, utilizing video modeling has become more feasible for educators to promote functional living skills of individuals with ASD.AimsThis article aims to review the single-case experimental literature and aggregate results across studies involving the use of video modeling to improve functional living skills of individuals with ASD.Methods and proceduresThe authors extracted data from single-case experimental studies and evaluated them using the Tau-U effect size measure. Effects were also differentiated by categories of potential moderators and other variables, including age of participants, concomitant diagnoses, types of video modeling, and outcome measures.Outcomes and resultsResults indicate that video modeling interventions are overall moderately effective with this population and dependent measures. While significant differences were not found between categories of moderators and other variables, effects were found to be at least moderate for most of them.Conclusions and implicationsIt is apparent that more single-case experiments are needed in this area, particularly with preschool and secondary-school aged participants, participants with ASD-only and those with high-functioning ASD, and for video modeling interventions addressing community access skills.