Effectiveness of modeling and rehearsal to teach fire safety skills to children with autism

Autism is a disorder that affects children at an alarming rate. One out of every 88
children is diagnosed with autism in the United States. The disorder is characterized by
communication, social, and behavioral deficits. Children with autism often require
specialized teaching methods to learn basic skills that most children acquire without
specialized instruction. Relatively few studies have examined strategies for teaching
safety skills to individuals with autism. The current study utilized a multiple baseline
across participants’ design to evaluate whether a modeling and rehearsal strategy is
effective for teaching fire safety skills to children with autism between 4 and 5 years of
age. Results indicated that modeling and rehearsal were effective in teaching fire safety
skills, the skills generalized to novel settings, and maintained 5-weeks following the
completion of training. Implications for safety skill instruction and future research are
discussed.