TeachTown: Basics, a computer-assisted behavioral intervention, has been shown in studies to be a promising tool for teaching early developmental skills to students with autism and other special needs. Recent studies have replicated positive results with preschoolers using a standardized developmental outcome measure and have demonstrated usage patterns of discrete trials (e.g. reaction time, accuracy, prompting) for thousands of existing students. TeachTown has been in the development stages for a new product, TeachTown: Social Skills, that utilizes the science of video modeling, social stories, narrative language, and social development to teach social skills to young children in a group instructional model. Each volume includes day-to-day group lessons and 1:1 assignments to teach 10 different social skills. The first volume, Following Rules, is currently being piloted in multiple classrooms across the U.S. Both products include engaging animated characters and professional media design to enhance motivation and improve maintenance of intervention over time.
Objectives:
1) To demonstrate 2 products designed to target early developmental skills including language, social skills, cognitive, play, and academic skills. Demonstration will include engaging hands-on experience with the products; 2) To show the most current research results on each product; and 3) To provide a description of each product including the science behind each of them using hand-outs and samples of each product.
Methods:
Current research on TeachTown: Basics and pilot data for TeachTown: Social Skills will be presented. Both products will also be demonstrated and will include the opportunity for children, parents, or researchers to try out each product at IMFAR and to take a sample of both products for further evaluation. Data from TeachTown: Basics was analyzed regarding choice making of students using the software. Reward game/cartoon selection, task choice, position preferences, and other decision making data points for over 2,000 students was measured via automatic data collection on the computer. A pilot study was conducted with 15 preschool and kindergarten students with autism using the first volume of the TeachTown: Social Skills program.
Results:
Results from the TeachTown: Basics study show distinct patterns of choice making that demonstrate the popularity of rewards, the types of choices students tend to make, and highlight issues in the software that need modification in future versions.
Results from the TeachTown: Social Skills study focus on the usability and feasibility of the program for use by teachers in a group environment. Students demonstrated success with the lessons as shown by teacher data collection, and teachers reported positive experiences with the program.
Conclusions:
The potential benefits of media-based interventions are clearly demonstrated in both TeachTown products and the research to date provides a strong framework for using these types of interventions with students with autism. Research is conducted on TeachTown products at all stages including development, feasibility and usability, pilot testing, effectiveness testing, qualitative data analysis, social validity, and large-scale clinical trials. In addition to the strong research base, these products offer a motivating learning experience for students and conference attendants will enjoy a fun, hands-on experience with both products.