A rapid assessment of instructional strategies to teach auditory-visual conditional discriminations to children with autism

The purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate a rapid assessment procedure to identify effective instructional strategies to teach auditory-visual conditional discriminations to children diagnosed with autism. We replicated and extended previous rapid skills assessments (Lerman, Vorndran, Addison, & Kuhn, 2004) by evaluating the effects of reinforcement and prompting on the acquisition of auditory-visual conditional discriminations. The results showed that our assessment procedure identified at least one effective instructional strategy for each participant. In addition, our experimental design allowed us to identify the most efficient instructional strategy for all three participants.

► We evaluated a method for conducting skills assessments for children diagnosed with autism. ► We compared instructional strategies within the skills assessment to identify effective and efficient strategies. ► The results indicate that the duration of our skills assessment is consistent with prior research on brief experimental analyses. ► The results identified effective instructional strategies within and across participants.