Embedding an ABA Intervention During Read Aloud

I previously posted a lesson plan that can be used to teach children with ASD to respond to comments during ongoing activities.  In school settings, it is important to plan ways to embed ABA interventions into as many different instructional and non-instructional activities as possible (as opposed to implementing the intervention in isolation).  I will give you an example for how the lesson plan (re-posted below) can be embedded during a read aloud activity.  Here is the lesson plan:

1. When the child is engaged in an activity, make a comment about what the child is doing. If the child responds, provide positive reinforcement by smiling and making another related comment with positive affect.

2. If the child does not respond to the comment, use time delay to encourage a response.

3. If the child does not respond given the time delay, try either restating or rephrasing the comment. If still no response, use the following least-to-most prompts hierarchy:

a.   Point to something the child can comment about

b.  Use a fill-in (give a sentence starter and have the child finish the sentence)

c.  Use modeling/request imitation (model the comment and have the child imitate the response)

4.Use peer-mediated interventions when possible to encourage the child to respond to comments from peers.

5. Provide multiple opportunities throughout the day, across a variety of settings and activities to promote generalization of the skill.

Now...Here is how the above ABA lesson plan can be embedded during a read aloud activity.  

The teacher is reading a book to her kindergarten class.  In the book, there is a picture of a girl eating breakfast.  The teacher says, "Her breakfast looks delicious!"  The children immediately start responding to that comment saying things such as, "She's eating pancakes!" "I had cheerios for breakfast!" "My mom makes me pancakes too!" The student with autism, Jack, does not respond to the comment.  The teacher calls on Jack specifically and restates the comment while showing Jack the picture ("Jack, her breakfast looks delicious!").  The teacher uses time delay, but Jack still doesn't respond.  The teacher rephrases the comment to encourage Jack to respond ("She is eating.")  Jack says, "Eating."  Since Jack did not respond to the comment other than imitating the word "eating," the teacher restating the comment, "She is eating," and pointed to the pancakes.  Jack said, "Eating pancakes."  The teacher said, "Yes, Jack, she IS eating pancakes. They look soooo good!" 

Some may say, "I can't interrupt my instruction and do all of that while the other students are ready to move on." The fact is, it takes way less than a minute to embed that intervention, and the impact the intervention will have on Jack is well worth taking those few moments to teach him how to respond to comments just like his peers do.