| A single subject study with multiple baselines across participants was used to explore the effect of giving access to picture-to-text software for writing to young students, with moderate autism, and documented difficulties with written language. For this intervention study, three participants, who had strengths in visual processing and who were motivated by technology, responded to picture prompts by typing for three minutes under two conditions. During baseline participants were given a blank document with picture-to-text software and a bank of randomly positioned words below the writing area. For the intervention condition, the participants had access to a similar word bank with a picture above each word as well as word placement according to sentence structure, auditory feedback, and color cues. During the 21 writing sessions, scores earned for number of sentences written, percent of correct word sequences (CWS), and number of incorrect word sequences (IWS) was analyzed to determine significance between the baseline samples and samples generated using words with corresponding pictures. An assistive technology assessment, participant and parental surveys, scoring sheets, and fidelity checklists were used to gather additional information. Inter-rater reliability and fidelity of treatment were determined.;During intervention sessions, participants wrote an average of three more sentences, earned an average of 52% more percent CWS and decreased number of IWS by an average of 42 errors. For the three participants the mean of percent of non-overlapping data (PND) was 92% for number of sentences, which is considered a large effect; and the mean PND was 89% for percent CWS, which is considered effective. Randomization tests were also run and two out of the three dependent variables, number of sentences and CWS were found to be statistically significant. These results extended other research studies with young students with moderate autism by adding the use of pictures to computer enriched instruction that was found to be effective for improving writing products for similar students. |
