Discrete Trial Training in the Treatment of Autism

Abstract

Discrete trial training (DTT) is a method for individualizing and simplifying instruction to enhance children's learning. For children with autism, DTT is especially useful for teaching new forms of behavior (e.g., speech sounds or motor movements that the child previously could not make) and new discriminations (e.g., responding correctly to different requests). DTT can also be used to teach more advanced skills and manage disruptive behavior. However, several cautions about DTT are noteworthy: First, the method must be combined with other interventions to enable children to initiate the use of their skills and display these skills across settings. Second, early in treatment, children with autism may require many hours of DTT per week, although controversy exists over precisely how much is appropriate. Third, to implement DTT effectively, teachers must have specialized training. Despite these limitations, DTT is one of the most important instructional methods for children with autism.

Developing Procedures to Improve Therapist–Child Rapport in Early Intervention

“…* Ashley M. Lugo lugoam@slu.edu to introducing nonpreferred or aversive therapeutic components (Smith, 2001;Sundberg & Partington, 1998;Sundberg, 2008). The pairing procedure is generally described as imitating the child's actions, engaging in activities the client prefers, and delivering preferred items and activities to the client (Smith, 2001;Sundberg & Partington, 1998).…”

“…The pairing procedure is generally described as imitating the child's actions, engaging in activities the client prefers, and delivering preferred items and activities to the client (Smith, 2001;Sundberg & Partington, 1998). The objective of pairing is to associate the service provider and therapeutic context with preferred items and activities such that the therapeutic context signals an Bimproving of conditions,r ather than a Bworsening of conditions^ (Carbone et al, 2007;Sundberg & Partington, 1998).…”

A case study in the misrepresentation of applied behavior analysis in autism: The gernsbacher lectures

“…Its 15-s introduction showed a therapist and a child sitting at a table across from each other engaged in DTT. DTT is one of many technologies that has evolved from ABA research (T. Smith, 2001;Tarbox & Najdowski, 2008), but none of them is meant to be applied in a cookiecutter fashion. Ideally, applications are individualized, taking into account developmental and individual differences (Schreibman, 2000), as well as differences in families and settings (on values, see e.g., Wolf, 1978).…”

Utilizing PEAK Relational Training System to Teach Visual, Gustatory, and Auditory Relations to Adults with Developmental Disabilities

“…DTT teaches each step of a skill one at a time instead of the entire skill all at once. This has shown to be a successful method of teaching for people with autism and disabilities (Smith, 2001).…”