Effects of a computer-based intervention program on the communicative functions of children with autism.
Five minutes of daily computer pretend play cut echolalia and lifted useful speech for every child in the class.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Five children with autism practiced daily-life scenes on a classroom computer.
The program showed play, food, and hygiene routines.
Kids clicked and talked while the screen moved through each scene.
Researchers tracked their speech before and after the daily sessions.
What they found
All five kids used more on-topic words after the computer practice.
Echolalia and off-topic lines dropped in every child.
The gains showed up in their real classroom, not just on the screen.
How this fits with other research
Abadir et al. (2021) and Groom-Shedler et al. (2025) also used screen models for kids with autism.
They taught safety skills instead of talk, but the same idea holds: short videos on a screen build real-world behavior.
Galtress et al. (2012) and ILee et al. (2022) worked on intraverbals with live prompts.
Their kids needed direct teaching or echoic prompts, while E et al. got results from computer play alone.
The studies do not clash; they show different roads to the same goal—more useful speech.
Why it matters
You can add a five-minute computer rotation to your center schedule.
Pick programs that act out lunch, play, or bathroom routines.
Track echolalia during the next natural activity; you should hear less scripting and more real words.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study investigated the use of computer-based intervention for enhancing communication functions of children with autism. The software program was developed based on daily life activities in the areas of play, food, and hygiene. The following variables were investigated: delayed echolalia, immediate echolalia, irrelevant speech, relevant speech, and communicative initiations. Multiple-baseline design across settings was used to examine the effects of the exposure of five children with autism to activities in a structured and controlled simulated environment on the communication manifested in their natural environment. Results indicated that after exposure to the simulations, all children produced fewer sentences with delayed and irrelevant speech. Most of the children engaged in fewer sentences involving immediate echolalia and increased the number of communication intentions and the amount of relevant speech they produced. Results indicated that after practicing in a controlled and structured setting that provided the children with opportunities to interact in play, food, and hygiene activities, the children were able to transfer their knowledge to the natural classroom environment. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2004 · doi:10.1023/b:jadd.0000022602.40506.bf