A comparison of the effects of providing choice opportunities within and between activities during one-to-one teaching to children with autism spectrum disorders

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of providing choice opportunities within and between activities during one-to-one teaching on task engagement and self-stimulatory behaviors of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) as well as the efficiency of the choice opportunities in terms of duration of instructional sessions. Furthermore, social validity of the study was investigated by asking the oppinions of the special education teachers working at various schools in Eskisehir regarding the usability of the choice opportunities. Four male students with ASD whose ages ranged from 5 to 8 paticipated in this study. A multi-element treatment design (A-B-A-C-A-BC) was used to compare the choice opportunities within and between activities. In the study, the data regarding interobserver realibility and procedural integrity were collected and high rates of realibity were obtained for both. The results of this study showed that the choice opportunities provided by the teacher within, between and within-between activities during one-to-one teaching increased task engagement behaviors of children with ASD. Moreover, the choice opportunities provided by the teacher within, between and within-between activities slightly decreased the self-stimulatory behaviors. However, no difference was found among various choice opportunities. Efficiency findings of the study showed that choice opportunities within activities were more efficient than the other procedures in terms of the duration of instructional sessions. Furthermore, the results of social validity analysis indicated that the oppinions of the special education teachers regarding the usability of choice opportunities were very positive overall.