The Effects of Programmed Reinforcement and Chained Mastery Criteria on Yoga Pose Performance in Two Young Children with Autism

Community exercise can offer many benefits for children, including the opportunity to engage in physical activity and interact with peers in a social setting. Children with autism do not engage in as many community activities as their typical peers. This study examines conditions to teach young chil...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Nguyen, Linda N.
Other Authors: Ala'i-Rosales, Shahla
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: University of North Texas 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc848146/
Description
Summary:Community exercise can offer many benefits for children, including the opportunity to engage in physical activity and interact with peers in a social setting. Children with autism do not engage in as many community activities as their typical peers. This study examines conditions to teach young children to complete yoga poses to mastery. The effects of prompting, programmed reinforcers, and a chaining criteria were evaluated using a comparison design with two baselines and one intervention condition, replicated across two children with autism. Both children mastered performance of all four targeted yoga poses. The findings are discussed in the context of previous research on the benefits of yoga.