A progressive model for teaching children with autism to follow gaze shift
A prompt ladder plus praise can teach preschoolers with autism to follow gaze, but watch for kids who need extra help when the room changes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Gunby et al. (2018) worked with three preschoolers with autism.
The team built a step-by-step prompt ladder to teach each child to look where an adult looked.
Sessions moved from full hand cues, to finger points, to only eye shifts, then to praise alone.
What they found
Every child learned to follow the adult’s gaze and pick the correct toy.
Two of the three kids kept the skill when mom ran the game and no prizes were given.
The third child needed extra teaching time to reach the same point.
How this fits with other research
Gunby et al. (2017) ran almost the same plan one year earlier and got the same good results.
Lee et al. (2022) later showed you can drop the toys and still keep the skill, as long as you fade prompts slowly and keep social praise.
Vassos et al. (2023) added many toys and people during teaching and saw the skill spread to new items without extra work.
Together the four papers form a clear line: start with prompts, fade them, then let social praise carry the skill.
Why it matters
You can add gaze-shift lessons to any table-time program.
Run the ladder in short loops and track when the child beats you to the toy.
Plan extra sessions for kids who stall when parents or new items enter the room.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Gunby, Rapp, Bottoni, Marchese and Wu (2017) taught three children with autism spectrum disorder to follow an instructor's gaze shift to select a specific item; however, Gunby et al. used different types of prompts with each participant. To address this limitation, we used a progressive training model for increasing gaze shift for three children with autism spectrum disorder. Results show that each participant learned to follow an adult's shift in gaze to make a correct selection. In addition, two participants displayed the skill in response to a parent's gaze shift and with only social consequences; however, the third participant required verbal instruction and tangible reinforcement to demonstrate the skill outside of training sessions.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2018 · doi:10.1002/jaba.479