| The social deficits associated with autism spectrum disorders have long-term implications for children's subsequent development and outcome. There are deficits of particular importance---joint attention and verbal initiations---that are recognized as core intervention targets due to their influence on other developmental domains. Fortunately, the literature suggests that interventions that emphasize motivational treatment strategies and parent-delivered treatment can create a powerful transactional feedback loop in which both child and parent social behavior simultaneously increase and positively influence one another. The purpose of this study is to examine the transactional effects of teaching parents to embed social interaction into their child's language intervention. The results indicate that the use of parent embedded social interactions led to (a) increases in their children's use of eye contact, joint attention, positive affect, and verbal initiations, (b) increases in parent positive affect and delivery of reinforcement, (c) increases in synchronous engagement, and (d) generalized increases in parent and child behaviors. Lag sequential analyses revealed the presence of transitional sequences between parent and child behaviors during the embedded social interaction intervention. |
