Video Technology and Persons with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities: An Emerging Technology for PBS

3 Video is a novel and expanding technology for positive be-havioral support. Because it is acceptable and widely used by typical adults and children for leisure, educational, and business activities, it has considerable potential as an effective , socially acceptable form of support. The use of video technology can lead to a range of positive social, language, and academic outcomes for children with a variety of disabilities. It may be used in a variety of ways as an educational intervention. Videos may present peer, self-, or adult models of appropriate social and language behavior. Observing a videotape of correct performance can also be used as a correction procedure. Video technology also has the potential to promote stimulus control of appropriate child behavior through non-social stimuli, thus freeing the child from reliance upon prompts from other people. Finally, video technology can be incorporated as one element within a broad package of positive behavioral support for children with disabilities. In this special section we expand on previous uses of video technology by addressing new behaviors, such as perspective taking; independent, cooperative, and imaginative play; spontaneous requesting; and academic skills. Charlop-Christy and Daneshvar present an interesting study of the use of video technology in teaching perspective taking to children with autism spectrum disorders. In their theory of mind, Baron-Cohen and Swettenham (1989) posited that children with autism have an inherent deficit in understanding the thoughts and feelings of others. They believed that these deficits reflect abnormalities in putative cognitive structures residing in as yet undetermined regions of the brain. Interventions based on theory of mind have had only limited impact on teaching these skills (e.g., Swettenham, 1996). Theory of mind presents an interesting challenge to behavior analysis. It describes subtle social behaviors and more complex kinds of performances that behavior analysis has generally not previously addressed. Theory of mind requires that behavior analysis account for these behaviors (Spradlin & Brady, 1999). D'Ategno, Mangiapanello, and Taylor address how to increase imaginative play in a child with autistic disorder. They demonstrate that video modeling by an adult was effective at teaching a variety of imaginative play behaviors, such as having a tea party, to this child. There are at least two significant aspects of this study. First, the child learned to engage in extended periods of pretend play without programmed prompting, correction, or reinforcement from another person. Second, the child learned to do this by …