The use of differential reinforcement to increase participation/engagement in children with autism in an inclusion setting

Abstract Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) would gain more from instructional material if they increased their participation and engagement in general education classrooms. However, these children often grow dependent on prompts from teachers and paraprofessionals to participate. This can impede the children from participating independently in other settings and from engaging with the instructional material presented to them. The purpose of this study was to increase independent participation, while decreasing the prompt dependency of 3 children with ASD in a general education classroom. The use of differential reinforcement and prompt fading increased the hand raising behavior of all three participants in this study. Prompts were faded sequentially and all participants reached verbal prompting; they all increased independent hand-raising at the conclusion of the study