Using an Animated Cartoon Hero in Video Instruction to Improve Bathroom-Related Skills of a Student with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The present study investigated the effectiveness of video hero modeling (VHM) for building four bathroom-related behaviors of an elementary-aged student with autism spectrum disorder. In the VHM intervention, the participant watched a video immediately before going to the bathroom he typically used. In the video, an animated face of a cartoon hero with which the participant was preoccupied and an adult who pretended he was the hero appeared in the bathroom. While the adult (whose head was not shown in the film) engaged in the target behavior, the animated cartoon hero explained that the adult was hero and showed how the student had to behave. A multiple baseline across behaviors demonstrated that VHM interventions contributed to improving the four target behaviors. However, for one target behavior, the video hero praising (VHP) intervention seemed necessary to evoke a correct response in a stable manner.