ASAP Intervention Paper

The Impact of the Advancing Social-communication and Play (ASAP) intervention on preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder

What’s the big idea:
A studied completed by Dykstra, Boyd, Watson, Crais, and Baranek evaluated social communication and play skills in young children. The study took place in a public preschool with children who were on the spectrum. Dykstra et al., examined the outcomes of the ASAP intervention (Advancing Social-communication and Play). They used the intervention in two different situations: a group setting and another group that had both one on one and a group setting.
ASAP Intervention and Intervention Aspects:
• Consists of hierarchies of social-communication and play objectives: “20 sequenced objectives across three categories of social communication: social interaction, requesting, and joint attention. 21 sequenced objectives across four categories of play: exploratory, relational, functional, and symbolic play” (Dykstra, Boyd, Watson, Crais, & Baranek, (2012).
• Group setting
• One on one setting
• 3 preschool classrooms
Study Methods and Participants:
• Consisted of three phases to reach objectives (phases below)
1. Baseline (one on one)
2. All
So did this intervention work? In terms of social communication, each participant showed variability in that on average the intervention increased his or her social communication behaviors slightly within both settings. In terms of play, all participants increased their play behaviors in both settings; however both were variable and at different severities. In conclusion, the ASAP intervention helped all participants gain social-communication and play behaviors in some manner. The researchers also noted that the one to one and the group setting showed more improvements of the behaviors versus just the one to one