Programming participation in family activities for children with autism: parents' use of photographic activity schedules.
Parents armed with a photo binder can run an activity schedule that keeps kids with autism engaged and calm for months.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three boys with autism joined family routines like setting the table.
Parents took photos of each step and placed them in a small binder.
The kids flipped the pages to see what to do next.
Researchers watched the boys for months to see if the photos helped.
What they found
All three boys stayed on task longer and started more chats with family.
Disruptive behavior dropped sharply.
The gains lasted up to ten months with no extra coaching.
How this fits with other research
Bigby et al. (2009) and Spanoudis et al. (2011) swapped the paper binder for a PDA.
Same result: kids stayed independent, but now the device gave voice prompts.
Spriggs et al. (2015) kept the parent-made idea but used 30-second videos instead of still photos.
All studies show parents can run the show at home with simple tools.
Why it matters
You can teach parents to snap photos of any routine: brushing teeth, packing a backpack, or starting homework.
One binder and a camera can cut problem behavior and boost family life tonight.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The parents of 3 boys with autism were taught to help their children follow photographic activity schedules depicting a variety of home-living tasks. A multiple baseline across participants showed that the home-based intervention produced increases in children's engagement and social initiations and decreases in disruptive behavior, which were maintained for as long as 10 months.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1993 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1993.26-137