Teaching Functional Play Skills to a Young Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder through Video Self-Modeling.

One preschooler with autism watched short phone videos of himself playing the right way with three toy sets.

The clips showed only the correct actions—no errors. Adults taped the child during practice, edited out mistakes, and played the polished clips back before play time.

A multiple-baseline design proved the videos, not chance, caused any change.

After watching himself play, the boy’s functional play actions jumped up right away.

The gains stayed for at least two weeks and spread a little to toys that were never taught.

Somers et al. (2024) used the same video-modeling idea to teach water flossing through telehealth. Their work shows the trick works for daily living skills and can be run by parents at home.

DeQuinzio et al. (2018) also used a multiple-baseline design with autistic kids, but taught them to copy only correct models in person. Both studies show kids with autism learn fast when the model is flawless, whether on video or live.

Goldstein et al. (1991) had parents boost speech with a simple time delay—no video. Taken together, the three papers say parents can deliver powerful interventions at home, with or without tech.

You can make a 30-second selfie video of the learner doing the play sequence right, show it before play time, and see skills rise without extra staff. Try it during center time or send the clip home for parents to use—no fancy gear needed.