Parent Language Intervention for Autism

Mothers assigned to the responsive experimental condition will learn how to talk about what is in their child's focus of attention and to respond to all child communicative attempts by either: (a) assigning a presumed meaning to preverbal communication or vocalizations or (b) by repeating the child's verbal communication and adding words.

Mothers assigned to the directive experimental condition will learn how to: (a) set up a prompting trial through management of toys or by responding to a child request, (b) recruit the child's attention, (c) provide a discriminative stimulus (cue), (d) wait for the child's response for 5 seconds, (e) reinforce the child for correct production of the target or provide additional prompts after incorrect productions. Parents will perform one prompting trial per minute for a total of 20 trials per parent session.