Using joint control to teach activities of daily living and vocational tasks to students with autism
Teaching students to whisper task steps to themselves lets them complete daily-living and vocational sequences without adult help.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Five students with autism learned daily-living and job tasks.
The teacher showed the steps, then asked the students to whisper the steps to themselves.
This silent self-talk is called joint control. The study used a multiple-baseline design across kids.
What they found
Every student learned to whisper the steps and then do the task correctly.
Some students could even do new, untaught tasks after they learned the self-talk trick.
How this fits with other research
Lowenkron’s 1991 theory paper first described joint control. Hozella et al. (2022) turned that idea into a real classroom tool.
Aldi et al. (2016) used iPad videos to teach daily skills. Both studies got good results, but one used pictures and the other used self-talk, so you now have two choices.
Cohen et al. (1990) taught self-help with modeling and praise. The new study shows self-talk can reach the same goal with less adult hovering.
Why it matters
If a student can quietly repeat the steps, you don’t need to stand beside them. Whispered self-instruction cuts prompt dependency and builds independence. Try it next time you teach a chore or job routine.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractThe purpose of this study was to assess the efficacy of a self‐rehearsal procedure to teach five individuals with autism to follow multiple‐step selection of stimuli. Within a multiple probe design across participants, participants were taught to echo the experimenter's instruction, self‐echo, and then select multiple pictorial stimuli in order from an array of directly trained and untrained sets of stimuli. Self‐rehearsal and selection related to activities of daily living in the natural environment required direct training. Probes of novel multiple‐step tasks were conducted. Implications for the role of joint control in developing skills sequences to teach generative responding, conceptual analyses of covert verbal behavior, and designing instructional goals related to transition from formal education settings are discussed.
Behavioral Interventions, 2022 · doi:10.1002/bin.1850