Teaching children with autism spectrum disorder situation-based emotion prediction with constant time delay procedure
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES, 2026 (SSCI, Scopus)
- Publication Type: Article / Article
- Publication Date: 2026
- Doi Number: 10.1080/20473869.2026.2689049
- Journal Name: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES
- Journal Indexes: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, CINAHL, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, EMBASE, ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Psycinfo, Biomedical Reference Collection: Corporate Edition (EBSCO), Education Source Ultimate (EBSCO), Health Research Premium Collection (ProQuest)
- Anadolu University Affiliated: Yes
Abstract
Backround Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty recognizing emotions. Studies have shown that behavioral teaching procedures may be used as an intervention to enhance emotion recognition in these individuals.Objective This study aims: (a) to enable children with ASD to predict others' emotions based on situational or event-based contexts, (b) to generalize across settings, materials and next emotion prediction stage (i.e. desire-based emotions), (c) to evaluate the maintenance of acquired skills at 7, 14, 28, and 60 days after intervention, and (d) to assess parents' perspectives on the social validity of the intervention.Methods This study focused on the effectiveness of using constant time delay instruction with live modeling to improve children with ASD's ability to predict basic emotions during early childhood. This study used a multiple probe design across participants. The study included three children with ASD whose ages ranged from four to five and who did not demonstrate this skill at baseline. Instructional materials consisted of a verbal description of each situation accompanied by a corresponding picture presented on a card.Results Two participants acquired a repertoire of emotion prediction and identification of emotional causes. These skills generalized to untrained desire-based emotions (i.e. the subsequent intervention phase) and across different settings. Furthermore, the acquired skills were maintained during follow-up sessions. Social validity data obtained from the participants' mothers indicated that the children frequently used situation-based emotional expressions appropriately within their daily routines. Acquisition was not achieved for one participant.Conclusions The implications for practice and directions for future research are discussed.