Self-Directed Video Prompting and Least to-Most Prompting: Examining Ways of Increasing Vocational Skill Acquisition Among Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of point-of-view video prompting (VP) as a self-prompting strategy with a least-to-most prompting (LMP) system on the rapidity of skill acquisition of two students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and two students with intellectual disability (ID) when working on school-based vocational tasks. Methods: We used multiple probes across students design of single-case experimental methodology to examine whether or not causal relation existed between the intervention and students’ vocational skill acquisition and follow-up performance. Target tasks involved both process and basic functional mathematics steps that required students to pay attention to the process of task completion rather than the functional step itself. Results: All students showed immediate and considerable improvement in skill acquisition between baseline and intervention. Furthermore, all students completed the tasks with an average of over 90% accuracy once the LMP was removed. The four students in this study required two to six intervention trials to reach 100% accuracy without the use of LMP, with a mean of four trials. Tau-U effect size showed a strong effect of the intervention on skill acquisition and follow-up performance. Conclusions: VP and LMP as a combined intervention can be effective in teaching vocational tasks that involve process steps to students with both ASD and ID. VP can be a useful support for students with ASD and ID in school, community, and employment settings to decrease reliance on adult prompting and increase independence.