Teaching a Child with Autism to Retell a Story

Retelling a story during group time

Operational Definition: After reading a book during group, the instructor will call on Ella and give the direction “Ella, tell us about what we read”. Within 5 seconds of the given direction, Ella will provide a brief summary of the story that was read during group. A summary should include the following components (a) an introduction, for e.g., “the story was about Jack and the beanstalk”(b) a list of the major characters in the book (c) a statement about where the story took place (d) a description about the problem or the sequence of events faced by the major characters for e.g., “Jack bumped into a giant, he found a goose that laid golden eggs, he was chased by the giant” (e) a statement about the resolution to the problem or the event for e.g., “Jack chopped down the beanstalk so the giant wouldn’t get him”(f) a brief statement about the ending to the story for e.g. “he was now safe from the giant and at home with his mother”. Data will be obtained everyday during group. For scripted statements, the instructor scores a (+) if Ella provides an accurate, contextual and independent response for each component above within 5 seconds of the instructor’s direction that match the script presented. The instructor scores a (-) if Ella does not respond, provides an incorrect and non-contextual statement about the story and needs help from her instructor for each component above within 5 seconds of the instructor’s direction. For unscripted statements, the instructor records the number of unscripted statements made per component using hash marks on the datasheet. Data are calculated and graphed as the number of correct scripted or unscripted statements per component during retelling a story. Data that are displayed on the visual graph represent probe data that is Ella’s performance without reinforcement or teaching as a consequence.

Discriminitive stimulus: The instructor’s direction to “tell me about the story”, “tell us what...