Recently Published TeachTown Research: Positive Behavioral Changes Associated with Computer Use for Children with Autism
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006
Last year TeachTown received a grant through the Department of Education to evaluate an early prototype of TeachTown: Basics. The results were recently accepted by the Journal of Speech and Language Pathology and Applied Behavior Analysis.
To view the entire article, download the PDF from our website: www.teachtown.com/research/
In the study, all children in the study showed significant improvement in their skills on the computer with a 53% increase from pre- to post-tests.
This part is not surprising, as there is already significant research about the value of computer-aided learning (both for typical children and children with autism.)
What was surprising were the positive behavioral results!
- Children with autism showed a 61% decrease in inappropriate behaviors while using the TeachTown software compared to baseline sessions.
- These children also showed a 44% decrease in inappropriate behaviors in TeachTown’s off-computer generalization activities with their parents compared to baseline sessions.
- Children with autism had a 105% increase in social behaviors and language while using the TeachTown software compared to baseline sessions.
- Although only a small increase (11%) in social and language behaviors were observed in TeachTown’s off-computer generalization activities compared to baseline, however, these changes had significant clinical impact for some of the children (e.g. parents feeling “connected” to their children in these activities).
These results may seem counter-intuitive as most of us probably have less language and social interaction while we are using the computer. However, this is not the first research study to demonstrate that children with autism are very motivated by the computer. This increase in motivation and the fact that the computer is a clear focal point may have lead to these increases in spontaneous language and social interaction.
Like many other researchers, teachers, and clinicians, I think the computer may be a very valuable tool for teaching certain skills to children with autism. In fact, some research studies have shown that children with autism may acquire skills faster using the computer compared to traditional teaching approaches. More research is needed to examine the efficacy of using computers for treatment and to assess the generalization of skills to the natural environment. More research is also needed on child characteristics for using TeachTown (or other computer-assisted interventions) and on how these programs can best be utilized in a school, home, or clinic setting.
It is very important to note that TeachTown is not simply a computer therapy, it is a computer and off-computer package meant to be used as such, we do not advocate ONLY using the software, the off-computer activities are equally or perhaps even more important to the success of this program for children with autism. The decrease in inappropriate behaviors was observed both using the TeachTown software and using the TeachTown off-computer generalization activities. I think this might be due to the fact that parents had some tools for interacting with their child (i.e. the software and the activities) which allowed the child to have a better sense of what they were supposed to be doing. Often times in research studies and in clinical practice, giving parents guidelines for working and playing with their child will result in a decrease in inappropriate behaviors without directly targeting those problem behaviors.
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