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The Efficacy of Pivotal Response Treatment in Teaching Question-Asking Initiations to Young Turkish Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

In the present study, a concurrent multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the efficacy of pivotal response treatment (PRT) on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of the question-asking initiations by four children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The researchers also examined whether the implementation of PRT resulted in collateral changes in language development and other areas of development. The results of this study indicate that PRT is highly effective in teaching question-asking initiations. Participating children with ASD were able to generalize in natural settings and maintain long-term question-asking initiations. Furthermore, PRT resulted in positive collateral changes in language and other areas of development. Implications for future research and practice are then discussed.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Dr. Sezgin Vuran for their help in social validity data collection. The first author completed this study in the requirements for a Ph.D. dissertation in special education at Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey.

Funding

This work was supported by Anadolu University Scientific Research Projects Commission, Turkey [Grant No. 1307E280].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey

    Gulden Bozkus-Genc & Serife Yucesoy-Ozkan

Authors
  1. Gulden Bozkus-Genc
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  2. Serife Yucesoy-Ozkan
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Contributions

GB-G conceived the project, designed the study, conducted the study, collected the data, prepared the data set, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. SY-O was mostly in an evaluative role. In all of the research process, she has peer-controlled, supervised the project, analyzed the data, drew the graphs, wrote and edited the manuscript in English.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gulden Bozkus-Genc.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical Approval

The study was approved by the ethics board of the Anadolu University (reference no: 28821/29.01.2016).

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants’ parents included in the study.

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Bozkus-Genc, G., Yucesoy-Ozkan, S. The Efficacy of Pivotal Response Treatment in Teaching Question-Asking Initiations to Young Turkish Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord 51, 3868–3886 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04848-y

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