Self-management of Sharing in Three Pre-schoolers with Autism

The effectiveness of self-management as a procedure to teach sharing to preschoolers with autism was examined using a reversal design. Three preschool boys with autism participated in this study. Each was familiar with the token economy system. A token economy was incorporated into a play situation in which each student was given the opportunity to take a token each time he shared spontaneously or in response to the verbal prompt of a teacher. All students systematically demonstrated a higher frequency of sharing during self-management phases than during baseline conditions in which tokens were provided non-contingently. This demonstrates that the mere presentation of tokens by the experimenter was not sufficient to cause behavior change. Rather, the opportunity to take tokens contingent upon correct responding appears to have lead to an increase in sharing for all three students. Accuracy of self-management was also examined. Accuracy of self-management was not high, indicating that the contingent relationship between token and response may not have been the crucial variable effecting behavior change. Implications for future research are discussed.