The Effectiveness of Video Modeling as a teaching technique in a third grader kid with Asperger Syndrome

Abstract
One of the most striking aspects of the condition (or conditions) labeled "autism" is its variability (Cohen, 1998). Every person can present different levels or variations of the condition and may react differently to treatments and interventions. The proposed research will study the effects of the video modeling teaching technique applied to the regular curriculum of an eight year-old child diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. The child will be required to complete 45 tasks from his curriculum following the in vivo and the video modeling technique. A Single Subject Research Experiment with an A-B-A design will be use to measure the number of tasks that the child can complete after receiving the instruction using the modeling technique. The hypothesis under consideration is that the video modeling technique will help the student to complete the tasks required by his curriculum. Results will be measured in terms of the percentage of tasks completed.

Introduction
A seven-year-old child with a documented history of developmental problems since early childhood, has recently received an educational diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome, a pervasive developmental disorder in the autism spectrum. Among several problems related to the condition, such as underdeveloped motor skills and inadequate social communication skills, the educational team that deals with the child want to address the kid’s inability to finish or complete classroom school-works within a specific amount of time. The team understands that with the appropriate support the child with Asperger Syndrome might be able to complete the classroom tasks in the expected time.

In 1992 The World Health Organization included the Asperger Syndrome (AS) as a subcategory of Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) (Ehlers and Gillberg, 1993). In 1994 the American Psychiatry Association included AS in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV), making it an “official” disorder in the autism spectrum (Klin and Volkmar, 1995). The autistic spectrum consists of a group of disorders of development with life-long effects and that have in common a triad of impairments in: social interactions, communication, imagination, and behavior (Wing, 1997). It is estimated that autism and related disabilities affects between 5 and 30 children in 10,000 (Robins, Fein, Barton, and Green, 2001).

In 2001 the Committee on Educational Interventions for Children with Autism (CEICA), in a study commissioned by the National Research Council, concluded that autistic spectrum disorders have effects on development in ways that affect children’s educational goals and the appropriate strategies to reach them. The committee also found that, although there is evidence that interventions lead to improvements, there does not appear to be a clear, direct relationship between any particular intervention and children’s progress.

Identifying appropriate teaching techniques for children in the autistic spectrum is a challenging task. Children with autistic-like behaviors may often process information differently, leading to different outcomes for different techniques. They tend to learn information as a gestalt or whole, and may not understand language as made up of individual words and meanings. Some children with autism are able to repeat entire passages from videos or television, and yet still no be able to use speech in a functional manner (Beukelman & Mirenda, 1992).

One teaching procedure that has received much attention in the literature is modeling, a method that generally involves the child observing another person, in vivo (person to person), engage in a target behavior (Charlop, Le, and Freeman, 2000). Another technique that emerged from the modeling procedure was video modeling, a method, which involves the child observing a videotape of a model engaging in a target behavior and subsequently imitating.

Video modeling as a teaching technique has been used successfully in different fields such as physics, mathematics, music, medical practice and others. Its framework is based in Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory. According to social cognitive theory, behavioral competencies, social competencies, and cognitive skills, are acquired through observational learning. The individual observes the modeled event and forms a cognitive construct, which shapes future behavior. Through the representation of the model, the individual observes benefits of the modeled procedure and is motivated to match behavior to that of the one observed (Krous, Fisher, and Yarander, 2001). As Charlop et al have exposed, research has shown that both in vivo modeling and video modeling are effective not only teaching new behaviors to children with autism but also in promoting generalization and maintenance of these behaviors.

The proposed research will study the effect of the video modeling method as an educational resource to help the child with Asperger Syndrome to complete the tasks assigned in his classroom school-work. The research will try to prove that video modeling is an appropriate and effective teaching technique for an Asperger kid. The study will produce a valuable outcome to help the education team implement a more comprehensive and research-supported intervention plan for the student.

Method
Participant - The proposed study is a Single Subject Research Experiment with an A-B-A design. It will study a third grade student of eight years-old (by the time of the study) with Asperger Syndrome. The kid is from Hispanic origin and English is his second language. He has an identical twin not affected by the syndrome. The study will be conducted in English. The child has shown moderate developmental problems since age 2. The most marked impairments have been motor skills delays and speech and language impairments in the pragmatic component. The subject has a normal intelligence and an IQ of 109. He is completely immersed in the mainstream of the typical population.

Instrument – for this research we are going to expose the child to the modeling teaching technique on two modes: in vivo modeling (person to person) and video modeling. The kid will be asked to complete several tasks taken from his regular classroom curriculum. In both modes, in vivo and video modeling, the child will receive the instructions and model (expected) behavior from two familiar adults, in this case his teacher and the speech pathologist (therapist). The tasks to be completed will be performed in the regular classroom during the normal coursework. The in vivo model task will be shown at a distance no longer than two meters in front of the student. The video modeling will be shown in a 32” flat panel stereo TV monitor at a distance no longer than two meters in front of the student.

The phase I of the experiment will be a base line period of ten weeks in the first semester of the Academic Year 2002-2003. During the base line period the subject will be exposed to the in vivo modeling technique. Fifteen tasks from the student’s curriculum will be selected and the student will be instructed to complete the tasks using the modeling technique. This baseline period is required in order to collect reliable data on the student response to the teaching method.

The phase II of the experiment will be conducted during the next 10 weeks after the phase I. During that period the tasks to be completed will be presented in both the in vivo and the video modeling techniques. Thirty tasks from the student’s curriculum will be selected. Fifteen tasks will be presented to the student using the in vivo modeling and the other fifteen will be presented using the video modeling. The in vivo and the video modeling tasks will be presented to the student in sequential order during the 10 weeks period. That means, one day the in vivo modeling task and the next day the video modeling task. The proposed study will consider the teaching method as an independent categorical variable and the number of completed tasks will be measured as a dependent quantitative variable.

Validity and reliability – The A-B-A design experiment was selected as a measure to reduce the threats to internal validity. In this type of study the subject is first exposed to a specific treatment during the base line period and the outcomes are measured in order to obtain reliable data. After the base line period the subject is exposed to both the original treatment (in vivo modeling) and the modified treatment (video modeling). In that way the risks of extraneous variable affecting the outcomes will be reduced and equally distributed.

The tasks to be completed by the student will be randomly selected. First the education team (teacher, speech pathologist, and researcher) will review all the tasks that the student will be required to complete during the semester. Then the team will discard those tasks that might not be appropriate for the modeling teaching technique. After that, the researcher will randomly assign the tasks to each mode of the modeling technique.

Pilot study - The proposed research will replicate an experiment performed by Charlop et al (2000) with a different switch. In Charlop’s experiment the researchers selected five children with autism. Our research will focus on a single subject with a specific condition under the autism spectrum, in this case Asperger Syndrome. In Charlop’s experiment the modeling techniques were applied in an after-hour special education program while in the present proposal the techniques will be applied in the normal classroom environment.

Procedure – During the 20 weeks period of the experiment the teacher and the therapist will present the student the tasks to be completed and will collect the data on how many tasks were completed by the student after been exposed to the modeling technique. It is expected that the student will be required to complete from one to two tasks per week during the base line period, and from two to three tasks per week during the rest of the experiment.

Analysis – The study under consideration is more likely to produce some descriptive statistics that will be presented in form of graphs and tables representing percentages and frequencies. This is because we have one categorical and one quantitative variable interacting. Although some correlation between the treatment and the outcome can be assumed that will have no significant value because of the absence of two quantitative variables to correlate. However, some causal-comparative data may emerge, but of no significant “statistical” value, due to the fact that it is a single subject research.

The most important outcome of the study will be the effects of the “treatment” under consideration in the subject under study. Due to the variability of the effects of the autistic spectrum disorders in the affected population this is the most appropriate approach under the actual conditions.

Limitations
One factor that can affect the outcomes of the study will be the nature of the required task. If the required task is related with motor skills, the kid’s deficiency in motor skills may affect the outcome. However, the random selection of the tasks will reduce and distribute equally that risk. Other limitation is that the results of the experiment can’t be generalized to any sub-group of the population affected with Asperger Syndrome. The fact that the study will be conducted in English and that the child uses English as a second language shouldn’t be a threat. The education team understands that the kid has an average or above average proficiency in English.

References

Beukman, D.R., and Mirenda, P. (1992). Augmentative and alternative communication management of severe communication disorders in children and adults. Paul H. Brooks: Maltimore, MD.

Charlop, M., Le, L., and Freeman, K. (2000). A comparison of video modeling with in vivo modeling for teaching children with autism. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, Vol. 30, No. 6.

Cohen, S. (1998). Targeting autism. University of California Press: Berkley, CA.

Committee on Educational Interventions for Children with Autism. (2001). Educationg children with autism. Natinal Academy Press: Washington, DC.

Ehlers, S., and Gillbert., C. (1993). The epidemiology of Asperger syndrome: a total population study. The Journal of child psychology and psychiatry and allied disciplines, Vol. 34, No. 8.

Howling, P. (1998). Children with autism and Asperger syndrome. John Wiley and Sons: Chichester, NY.

Krouse, H., Fisher, J.A., and Yarandi, H. (2000). Utility of video modeling as an adjunct to preoperative education. Southern Online Journal of Nursing Research, Issue 8, Vol. 2. (In http://www.snrs.org/members/SOJNR_articles/iss08vol02.htm)

Wing, L. (1997). The autistic spectrum. Lancet. The Lancet LTD.