Effectiveness of Discrete Trial Training on Motor Imitation in Children with Autism

The present study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of Discrete Trial Training on motor imitation skills in a child with high-functioning autism. This study was a case study with A-B-A design. Since the current research was looking for special or unusual cases, the purposeful sampling method was used. The subject was a boy with autism aged 3 years and 3 months in Kermanshah province. The target child received the intervention program for 21 sessions (6 consecutive weeks of one-hour sessions). Also, this study had three follow-up stages, 2 months, 4 months, and 6 months after the last intervention session. Stone, Ousley, and Littleford (2015) used the Movement Imitation Scale (MIS) to measure motor imitation in this study. The data were analyzed using SPSS-22 software, and the percentage of non-overlapping data (PND), percentage of overlapping data (POD), and Cohen's d. The findings showed that the subject had almost constant motor imitation scores at the baseline, which in the last session of the intervention was 0.60 percent recovery (PND), 0.40 percent overlap (POD), and after 2, 4, and 6 months follow-ups the month reached the recovery percentage (PND) of 100%. Also, the effect size using Cohen's d for the subject after the intervention was 1.34, and after 3 follow-up stages, 12.07 was at a high recovery level. Therefore, Discrete Trial Training can be considered by exceptional teachers, psychologists, and related planners.