News and Knowledge

Research Sponsor

This study is funded entirely by money raised by Team Running for OAR by the Shore, a group of parents, teachers, and the community of Leer North Elementary School, North Ridgeville, OH, as part of OAR’s RUN FOR AUTISM-Cleveland team in 2009 and 2010.

Researcher

Kara Hume, Ph.D.

Purpose

The proposed research will extend the use of work systems, an evidence-based practice with school-aged children that provides visual information about what one is expected to do, to adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

Why Is This Study Needed?

Individuals with autism often have difficulty completing tasks or a series of tasks independent of staff support. This reliance on staff presence or prompting has likely contributed to the dismal employment rate for individuals with autism, as well as to a number of poor outcomes that adolescents and adults with autism have reported (e.g. reliance on adult support in school settings, inability to live independently). Though a number of interventions are proven to increase independent functioning, few have been established as effective with older individuals with autism, and fewer still in natural settings, such as schools or job sites.

The study is expected to yield valuable information to caregivers and service providers regarding the efficacy of independent work systems for individuals with autism. While there are many intervention approaches that have been shown to be quite effective at promoting skill acquisition, fewer interventions also take into account the development of independent functioning or do so too late after patterns of learning and responding are fixed. This study will focus on this critical skill and should encourage those in the field to focus on the development of independent performance throughout the stages of learning (i.e. acquisition, fluency building, and generalization).

Study Methodology In Brief

The two proposed studies will be conducted at various school and employment sites throughout North Carolina and will include six individuals (three adolescents and three adults) with autism ages 15 and up. The studies will examine the impacts of work system usage across settings on on-task behavior, accurate task completion, and levels of adult prompting. In addition, data related to task complexity will be explored.

Work systems, visual information informing an individual what to do while in a work area, use an alternative stimulus to provide support for individuals with ASD. A work system is different than a visual schedule, as a visual schedule indicates where an individual is to go, while a work system answers questions about what is to be done once an individual has arrived at a scheduled location. Work systems attempt to provide individuals with ASD with a meaningful and organized strategy to help them start and complete a number of tasks or activities. Information in a work system is presented visually to individuals based on the developmental level of the individual, and can range from pictures or objects for those who are more concrete learners to written lists for individuals with strong reading and comprehension skills.

One study will work with three adolescents with autism, ages 15 to 18, while the second study will work with three adults with autism, age 19 or older.

Research staff will determine specific tasks/activities that each individual has previously been taught and has mastered, yet is not able to demonstrate independently (i.e. an adult must stay nearby for activity to be completed, but does not have to provide instruction on how to complete an activity). Examples include completing work independently in academic courses, completing a series of functional tasks in an employment setting, or completing homework assignments in a study hall period.

The study will employ three phases for each participant: baseline, training, and use of individual work systems. In the baseline phase, the individuals will be observed during the selected activities/tasks.

In the training phase, members of the research team will teach the individuals how to use their work systems. Materials will be similar but not identical to those used during the identified tasks. For example, if the identified series of tasks are related to a mail clerking job, the work system may be taught using mastered tasks related to another activity such as making lunch or participating in leisure activities.

During intervention sessions, all work system components will be used during the identified tasks/activities. Data will be collected related to time on-task and adult prompting, and task completion data will be collected during the activity as each step of the task is/is not completed and completed accurately.

One month after the training is completed, the research team will conduct a follow-up session to assess whether behavior change was maintained with the use of the individual work system.

About the Researcher

Kara Hume, Ph.D., will serve as the principal investigator for the proposed project. She is an investigator at Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is currently working on a federal grant project funded to evaluate the efficacy of behavioral interventions for children with autism. Dr. Hume has worked as a classroom teacher, TEACCH trainer and consultant, and a home program therapist. She has conducted previous research on work systems with children with ASD, including an OAR-funded Graduate Research grant in 2004 and has published the results in various peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Hume has the distinction of being the first researcher to receive OAR research grants as a graduate student then later as an applicant in the Applied Research Competition.