The effects of video priming on facilitating the transitions between the activities and environments for children with autism

Preschoolers are having difficulty in performing independent transitions during the intramural transitions and they spent the 20-35% of a school day during these transitions. For the reasons that they are less structured in accordance with teaching activities and they don't reveal the expected behaviors from children explicitly, the transitions become a part of time in which children show problem behaviors. There are various strategies in hand to facilitate the transitions-one of which is video priming. Video priming is a strategy used to prepare the children for an activity, task, transition or a stressful condition and prevent the problem behaviors which are caused by the emergent anxiety that is dependent on the environmental changes. On a video priming, before the transitions we let children watch a video clip showing the activity to be transferred and behaviors which are about to be performed in transition process behaviors. After that children are expected to fulfill the transition. In this research, the effects of video priming for children with autism aged between 4 and 6 on facilitating the transitions between the activities and environments, decreasing the time they spend and reducing the problem behaviors is analyzed. In the study, parents of the children and the education stuff of the training unit where these children are already attended formed a view on the importance of goals, acceptability of the strategy and significancy of the findings. The study is conducted by using the A-B-A-B research design. In the research, in order to collect the data controlled presentations recording was used for independent transition behaviors, latency recording was used for time of transition, and event recording was used for the problem behaviors. In the intervention sessions, before of the transition get children to watch a video priming in a group instructional design and then, children are expected to fulfill the transition. While independent transition behaviors of children are reinforced verbally; their problem behaviors are ignored. In the study the inter-observer agreement and treatment integrity data were collected and high agreement and integrity findings were ensured. The findings reveal that video priming for children with autism on enhancing the transitions between the activities and environments, decreasing the time they spend during transition and reducing the problem behaviors are effective; the views of parents and the education stuff about the importance of goals, acceptability of the strategy and significancy of findings are positive. In the thesis, results have been discusses based on the literature, some suggestions have been offered towards the application and future research. Key Words: Autism, Problem behaviors, Transition, Transition strategies, Video priming.