The effectiveness of simultaneous prompting procedure delivered in small group teaching arrangemenet on teaching question answering skills to children with autism

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effectiveness of simultaneous promptingprocedure delivered in small group teaching arrangement on teaching answering ?Where…??,?When…?? and ?What happens…?? questions to children with autism. The acquisition of theskills targeted during observational learning was also examined. Furthermore, generalizationeffects and maintenance effects of simultaneous prompting investigated.Five to six years old three children with autism participated in this study. A multiple probedesign across behaviors with probe condition was used and replicated across subjects.Different stimuli and different tasks were taught to each subject in the study. The dependentvariable of the study was answering ?Where…??, ?When…?? and ?What happens…??questions. The independent variable of the study was simultaneous prompting delivered insmall group teaching arrangement. The instruction was provided individually to each studentin a group teaching arrangement and the students in the group were encouraged to observeeach other. Full probe, daily probe, maintenance and generalization probe sessions andinstruction sessions were conducted in the study.Dependent and independent reliability data analyses were conducted in the study. Theeffectiveness data was analyzed by using graphical analyses.The findings of the study showed that simultaneous prompting delivered in small groupteaching arrangement was effective on teaching answering ?Where…??, ?When…?? and?What happens…?? questions. Generalization effects across materials, people and periods andalso maintenance effects of simultaneous prompting were found to be positive. Forthermore,the subjects of the study acquired the skills targeted for observational learning to a certainextend.