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and intellectual disability (ID; Boyle et al., 2011) highlights a critical need for evidence-based communication interventions. Failure to develop social-communicative skills in early childhood is a hallmark of ASD (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), and socio-communicative deficits often persist into adulthood, particularly for individuals with significant ID (Hewitt et al., 2012). The importance of interventions to promote sociocommunicative skills among children with ASD is ubiquitously recognized (e.g., Duffy & Healy, 2011); however, substantially less attention has focused on addressing the communication needs of older individuals with ASD and ID (Lang et al., 2014). Teaching functional communication to adolescents and adults is critically important in promoting their active participation in home, workplace, and community environments (Hendricks & Wehman, 2009; Orsmond, Krauss, & Seltzer, 2004) and reducing their challenging behavior (Kurtz, Boelter, Jarmolowicz, Chin, & Hagopian, 2011). A robust research literature has evolved to support use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) to enhance communication skills of children with ASD and ID

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The ongoing staff training is one of critical components for the effective programming for adolescents and adults with autism, although it is often overlooked. The available technology can be useful to improve not only productivity and organization of our daily life, but also the work performance. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of technology on performance of instructors who are working with adolescents and adults with autism. The multiple baseline treatment design was used across instructors with the age between 26-34 who had been trained on basic knowledge and extensive application of ABA principles. The data were collected 3 to 5 times per week via Bluetooth ® and self monitoring data collection system over 2 months. The results show that Bluetooth ® technology can be utilized for data collection effectively, and the intervention package, including immediate feedback, self monitoring, delayed feedback with video clips and graphs significantly improved staff performance across all participants. However, the videotaping sessions and the presence of supervisor have affected staff performance and the videotaped sessions were used for positive feedback instead of corrective feedback as the author indented initially.

The use of mobile devices has become a major medium of leisure engagement for the general population. However, individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) experience disparities in technology access, which may limit their engagement in mobile device-based leisure. Little research has examined procedures for teaching individuals with ID to engage in leisure activities with technology. Employing an iPad2, the present study examined the effects of an intervention package with most-to-least prompting on independent leisure engagement of six adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ID. In addition, the impact of teaching visual schedule use to increase their independence in leisure engagement was assessed. Results indicated that the interventions were effective in increasing the participants’ independent leisure engagement and their duration of leisure engagement. Caregivers reported high degrees of satisfaction with the interventions.