Discriminating which fork to use: Teaching selective imitation to people with autism

Little empirical research has focused on teaching of imitation to learners with autism in ordinary environments. Typically-developing individuals imitate the behavior of others in ordinary social environments. One possible reason that learners with autism do not imitate in ordinary environments is they are not observing relevant discriminative stimuli that should set the occasion for imitative responding. This paper will review the operant research on generalized imitation with the goal of identifying procedures to teach learners with autism to imitate in ordinary environments. A stimulus-control account of imitation in ordinary environments is included with the goal of the development of effective teaching procedures. Imitation in ordinary environments is discussed in relation to the discriminative stimuli that occasion imitative responding. The use of differential observing responses to increase discrimination of relevant stimuli in ordinary environments is suggested as a possible strategy to increase imitation among individuals with autism in ordinary environments.