Naturalistic Teaching Strategies (nats) to Teach Speech to Children with Autism: Historical Perspective, Development, and Current Practice

The present manuscript reviews four promising procedures for teaching speech to children with autism: Natural Language Paradigm, Speech/Play Enhancement for Autistic Kids, Multiple Incidental Teaching Sessions, and Time Delay. These training procedures are called Naturalistic Teaching Strategies (NaTS) because they incorporate components and strategies known to facilitate acquisition, generalization, and maintenance of new behaviors. These components include motivation, functional relationships, and facilitators of generalization and are briefly defined and discussed in relation to the four teaching procedures. All of the procedures and findings are data-based and can be used in a variety of settings such as classroom, playground, home, and community settings. The manuscript begins with a historical perspective of behavioral speech/language training and the need for NaTS and concludes with a discussion of the merits of NaTS and their importance in the treatment of children with autism. with less severe autism or mental retardation or those diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome have relatively more sophisticated language skills, but typically have problems with the subtle aspects of communication. These children may have difficulties integrating affective cues and the literal content of the speech (Volkmar & Cohen, 1994), may perseverate on topics, be unresponsive to cues of the listener, or have difficulties integrating the social flow of conversation. As such, they may be considered “eccentric” or “odd” in their conversational speech (Charlop & Milstein, 1989; Schreibman, 1988). Thus, the vast majority of children with autism either do not speak, speak words or jargon without communication (echolalia), or lack more naturalized and social aspects of speech such as conversational speech or spontaneous speech. Behavioral interventions have been developed to address many of these unusual speech difficulties and to assist children with autism in developing speech. In an attempt to provide a historical background, two of the first language intervention procedures (discrete trial procedures and incidental teaching procedures) are reviewed. This review is followed by a detailed discussion of the naturalistic teaching strategies that grew out of the early procedures.