A comparison of human and automated instruction of autistic children.

While it appears reasonable to assume that the autistic child might benefit from the development of programmed instruction and teaching machines to teach imitation, concepts, and receptive vocabulary skills, no systematic research to date has seriously investigated such possibilities. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of automated versus teacher-controlled instruction in the education of autistic children. Four autistic children, each with extreme deficits in language, social, and self-care behaviors, were trained on a matching-to-sample task under three different instructional situations within an intrasubject replication design and multiple baseline procedure. Analysis of the data showed the following results: (1) The teacher, manually operating the teaching machine, was able to teach and maintain the matching-to-sample task; (2) the same autistic children did not acquire or maintain the task when taught by the machine alone; and (3) the teacher alone (without the machine) was able to teach and maintain the task. The results suggest that automated instruction may, at least, serve as a valuable aid to teachers of autistic children. However, before machines can be used without the participation of a trained teacher, further research appears necessary. Several areas, including the role of motivation in automated instructional settings, the saliency and effectiveness of reinforcers, and the importance of controlling antecedent stimulus conditions and off-task behavior are discussed as areas of primary concern in the development of automated instruction for autistic children.