Efecto del Entrenamiento en Habilidades Conductuales sobre el establecimiento de habilidades sociales en niños con autismo
Short BST clips—starring anyone—swiftly teach kids with autism to read and react to emotions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three Spanish-speaking children with autism watched short videos of people showing emotions. One clip used an adult model, one a peer, and one a cartoon superhero.
After each video the kids practiced the right motor and vocal response. Trainers gave praise and gentle corrections. The team tracked how often each child matched the emotion with the correct action or word.
What they found
All three children jumped from about 20 % correct to 80-100 % correct in just a few sessions. The gains stayed high when the videos stopped.
Surprise: it did not matter if the model was an adult, another child, or a caped hero. Scores rose the same fast way no matter who was on screen.
How this fits with other research
Schaaf et al. (2015) first showed that a full superhero-themed group program works. Bermúdez et al. (2020) now says the hero part is optional—any clear model does the job.
Abney et al. (2026) later trimmed the superhero program to 20-minute weekly doses for preschoolers and still saw big gains. Together the three studies draw a line: BST drives change; the costume is just for fun.
Hutchins et al. (2020) swapped video for siblings and got the same large jump in social skills with kids who have ADHD. The package works across people, places, and diagnoses.
Why it matters
You do not need special cartoon clips or pricey software. Record a staff member or peer on your phone, run the usual BST script—instruction, model, practice, feedback—and kids with autism can master emotion recognition in a handful of 10-minute blocks. Pick the model the child likes; the learning will still stick.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Film a 30-second clip of a staff member showing happy, sad, mad, and surprised, then run three BST cycles this week.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of the present paper was to evaluate the effect of Behavioral Skill Training (BST) on social skills in children with autism. A second purpose was to evaluate the effect of different kinds of models on social skills in children with autism. Social skills were operationally defined as a contextually appropriate motor and vocal responses to a display of affect by a model. Participants included three children with autism. A multiple baseline design across participants was used. During the baseline an actor represented one of three emotions, frustration, happiness or pain. There were not programmed consequences for the responses of the participants. During the BST the instructions and model of the correct response was present in a video. The models were an adult, a child or a superhero. Following the presentation of the video an actor represented the emotion and the correct responses of the participant were recorded. Appropriate motor and vocal responses increased with the introduction of the BST. There was no difference in the motor and vocal responses when comparing the different models.
ACTA COMPORTAMENTALIA, 2020 · doi:10.32870/ac.v28i1.75179