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Task Interspersal: a Meta-Analytic Review of Effective Programming

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Abstract

Task interspersal is a commonly used teaching method for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. There are several procedural variations of task interspersal reported in the literature. The purpose of the present meta-analysis was to examine the effectiveness of different procedural variations and the effectiveness of task interspersal across target skills. Results revealed that no procedural variation presents a significant benefit over any other, suggesting that task interspersal may be an instructional procedure easily adapted to a client’s needs or preferences. Further, task interspersal was effective across a range of target skills. The flexibility of task interspersal as an instructional procedure is limited in that practitioners still must rely upon clinical judgment when deciding to implement specific task interspersal procedures. Considerations for programming task interspersal are discussed.

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Notes

  1. These terms were selected because they are associated with teaching procedures that involve the interspersal of multiple maintenance trials prior to each target acquisition trial.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Child Development, Binghamton University, 4400 Vestal Parkway East, Vestal, NY, 13850, USA

    Summer Bottini, Jennifer Vetter, Laura McArdell, Kaylie Wiseman & Jennifer Gillis

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  1. Summer Bottini
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  2. Jennifer Vetter
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  3. Laura McArdell
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  4. Kaylie Wiseman
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Correspondence to Summer Bottini.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors.

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Bottini, S., Vetter, J., McArdell, L. et al. Task Interspersal: a Meta-Analytic Review of Effective Programming. Rev J Autism Dev Disord 5, 119–128 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-018-0127-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40489-018-0127-7

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