Effect of Teacher-Mediated Discrete-Trial Training in Improving Communication Skills of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of teacher me-diated discrete trial training in improving the communication skills of chil-dren with Autism. The research deployed an ABAB research design, ABAB was divided into 4 phases; A1, B1, A2, and B2. A1 was a baseline, B1 was treatment, A2 was the removal of the treatment, and B2 was the treatment resumed following the break, and at last, a follow-up was conducted. In the study, three children with ASD who fulfilled the inclusionary criteria received Discrete-Trial Training from their teachers. In the study, the instruments used for assessment were social communication questionnaire-Lifetime, Au-tism diagnostic interview-revised, and Vineland-3 Adaptive behavioral scale (communication domain). To examine the intervention effect on each par-ticipant, visual analysis, raw score, v-scale score, and standard score compar-isons were used. The study result indicated that teachers successfully learned the procedures of DTT and significantly improved the communication skills of students with ASD. This research shows that when children with ASD require DTT intervention, their teachers receive intensive training to learn and deliver techniques with fidelity. This training also improves the skills of children with ASD.