A comparison of two group-delivered social skills programs for young children with autism.

The team ran two small social-skills groups for preschoolers with autism. One group watched short videos of kids sharing, taking turns, and greeting peers. Then they practiced the same moves with adult help. The other group simply played together with toys and no extra teaching.

Each group met for the same amount of time. Trainers counted prosocial acts like sharing a toy or saying hello before and after the program.

Kids in the video-modeling group showed more prosocial behaviors after the lessons. The play-only group did not improve.

The gains were medium in size. Sharing, helping, and greeting rose above the children’s starting levels and stayed higher at follow-up.

Petry et al. (2007) ran a similar study the same year. They used single-case design and also saw big social gains from short peer-model videos. Together, the two 2007 papers show the method works in both group and one-on-one formats.

Richman et al. (2001) tested video modeling six years earlier. They found no difference between watching yourself or watching another child. This older work tells us the model’s identity does not matter; what matters is the clear visual example.

Wilson et al. (2020) moved the same idea to older kids and daily-living skills. Adolescents with autism learned cooking faster with point-of-view videos. The pattern is the same across ages and skills: video modeling beats no teaching or weaker prompts.

Bailey et al. (2010) looked like a contradiction at first. They found no edge for video over live models. But their study compared two active teaching styles, while Fullana et al. (2007) compared video teaching to free play. The null result simply shows live modeling also works, not that video fails.

If you run social-skills groups for young children with autism, add short peer-model videos. They cost little and lift prosocial acts more than free play alone. Swap one free-play block for a five-minute clip plus quick practice and you may see more sharing and greetings next week.