Teaching children with autism to follow gaze shift: A brief report on three cases
Prompt and praise can quickly teach children with autism to follow an adult's gaze.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Gunby et al. (2017) worked with three children with autism. The goal was to teach them to look where an adult looked.
The adult shifted her eyes toward one of two toys. The child got a sticker for picking the toy she looked at. Prompts were given if needed.
What they found
All three kids learned to follow the gaze shift. They picked the right toy even when no reward was given.
Two of the three kids also used the skill with their parents, without extra training.
How this fits with other research
Gunby et al. (2018) ran the same study again. They added a clear prompt ladder and got the same good results. This shows the effect is reliable.
Lee et al. (2022) went further. They faded both prompts and tangible rewards. Kids still kept the skill for a month, proving the skill can stick with only social praise.
Congiu et al. (2016) looked like they disagreed. They found kids with autism failed gaze tasks that needed mind-reading. But they never taught the skill. Once Gunby taught it, kids succeeded. The papers differ because one tested untrained ability, the other tested taught skill.
Why it matters
You can teach gaze following in minutes with simple prompts and praise. Start with clear prompts, then fade them. Plan extra practice with parents if the child needs it. This small step builds early joint attention, a gate to richer social learning.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study evaluated the extent to which prompting and reinforcement increased three participants' correct selections of items following a therapist's gaze shift using a non‐concurrent multiple baseline design for two participants and an ABCD design for one participant. Results show that each participant learned to discriminate an adult's gaze direction to make a correct selection and each participant's responding generalized to selections with non‐reinforcing stimuli. Two participants also displayed the skill during probe sessions with their parents; however, the third participant required tangible reinforcement for correct selections to demonstrate the skill with a parent.
Behavioral Interventions, 2017 · doi:10.1002/bin.1465