THE EFFECT OF ACTIVITY SCHEDULES TO TEACH APPROPRIATE ACTIVITIES DURING FREE TIME TO STUDENTS WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS

Background: Recent literature suggests that activity schedules increase engagement and independent play skills while decreasing interfering behaviors for students with autism. Therefore, in this study, four students with diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder were taught to use an activity schedules at free time to examine the effects of it on rate of self-stimulatory behavior. Methods: A multiple baseline design was used to examine these effects. The three students were given an activity schedule housed in a binder with five different recess activities. Activities remained constant throughout the study, but the order was changed. Students followed the activity schedule while experimenters tracked frequency of self-stimulatory behaviors. The frequency was then divided by the duration it took the student to complete the schedule to produce rate data. Findings: Results showed that all three students had high levels of self-stimulatory behavior prior to implementation of the schedule (range of subjects: 6.3 – 10.5 times per minute). With the implementation of the activity schedule, all three students had significantly decreased rates of self-stimulatory behavior (range of subjects: (1.5 – 2.2 times per minute). The consistent results show that activity schedules decrease the rate of self-stimulatory behavior at recess. Conclusion: These findings support previous research performed over the last several years and confirmed the effectiveness of activity schedules for students with autism. Article visualizations: