Investigating the effects of error‐correction procedures across different skill sets for children with autism
The best error-correction trick changes from kid to kid and from skill to skill—test, don’t assume.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lloyd et al. (2021) tried four ways to fix errors during teaching for kids with autism.
They tracked how each child did on different skills like matching, naming, and sorting.
The team switched the error-fix style every few days to see which one clicked.
What they found
No single error-fix rule worked best for every kid or every skill.
A trick that helped a child learn letters sometimes slowed the same child on colors.
The only clear take-away: test each skill with each kid—guessing fails.
How this fits with other research
Yuan et al. (2020) earlier showed picture prompts beat echoic prompts for four kids across tasks.
Lloyd’s team widened the race to four prompts and still saw mixed wins, proving one size never fits all.
Halbur et al. (2023) ran a similar horse-race with imitation models and also found kid-by-kid scores.
Together these studies warn us: what speeds up one skill may slow another, even in the same child.
Why it matters
Stop relying on your favorite error-fix habit. Run a mini-alternating trial with two or three fixes the next time you teach a new skill. Track the data for one week, then roll with the winner for that child and that program. Your learner masters skills faster and you avoid wasted trials.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractTeaching skills to children with autism, even when using known effective procedures, sometimes results in learner errors. Several error‐correction procedures have been investigated and found to be generally better than using no error‐correction across studies. The various error‐correction procedures investigated have, however, demonstrated idiosyncratic effects across participants. Although idiosyncratic effects have been consistently found across participants and studies, most of the studies have not investigated whether the results are also idiosyncratic across skills for each participant. Investigating whether results are idiosyncratic across and within participants could be important in determining what error‐correction procedures to use for each learner in applied settings. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of four error‐correction procedures across skill sets for children with autism. The results showed idiosyncratic effects across participants (similar to past studies) and also across skill sets within participants. The implications of these results are discussed along with recommendations for future research.
Behavioral Interventions, 2021 · doi:10.1002/bin.1775