User:Denisonpsych/sandbox

Theory
These pivotal areas include motivation, responsivity to multiple cues, self-management, and social initiations. A child’s motivation to respond to and interact with the world around him or her is one of the biggest pivotal response focuses. Once a child is taught the positive outcomes of interacting with people in a social setting, they will have a greater desire to socially interact with those around them and will begin to naturally pick up on social cue and aspects. Social initiation, another focus, is the act of engaging in a conversation. Autistic children often have trouble starting or continuing a conversation because their verbal interactions are mainly used to accomplish something. They communicate protests and requests instead of engaging in a conversation to learn new information or make a social relationship. Responsivity to multiple cues is another pivotal area in which children with autism need extra help. Responding to multiple cues is the ability to use all of the cues and learning opportunities in their environment. This is especially important in an educational setting because children need to able to rely on the instructions, gestures, and social implications surrounding them in order to learn associations and engage in an educational setting.

Unique Characteristics
Pivotal response training is characterized by several very important details. Naturalistic setting is key to pivotal response training and separates it from several other therapies. A naturalistic setting is one in which the child is given therapy in a familiar setting, like their home, or surrounded by items that the child is familiar with. The therapist or parent performing the therapy will then set up a situation in the natural environment to allow for learning to occur. This allows for the child to apply their learned behaviors to general settings instead of just associating their learning with a specific therapy room and objects only found in that room. The ones performing the therapy are also more applicable to everyday situations, parents are trained in this type of therapy on how to use pivotal response training in their everyday interactions with their children. Parents are observed while their work and interact with their child and are then given advice and instruction of how to turn every day events into learning opportunities.

Process
PRT is a type of therapy that uses reinforcements to increase positive behavior. There are several parts of the PRT process that make it the unique and successful therapy that it is. First, the instructions of the therapist must be clear and they must have the child’s attention. In order to assure the child’s full attention and motivation to respond it is crucial that the child picks out his/her own reinforces/ topics of learning. The increased motivation given by a “child picked” object increases the child’s accuracy and decreases their reluctance to learn in an educational environment. The reinforces should be directly related to the task or learning opportunity. For example, if a child and therapist are working on the child asking politely for an object they want they therapist would tell the child to say “Can I please have the play dough”. Once the child asks politely for the play dough they will be rewarded with play dough rather than another reinforce that is not related to play dough. Parents are taught to use this technique throughout the day, using objects that directly relate to the task their child is undergoing. This direct relationship between the reinforcer and the task yields quicker responses from the child. The inclusion of maintenance trials are also crucial to PRT. Maintenance trials are those in which activities or commands the child has already mastered are intermixed with other commands and activities that the child has not yet mastered. This allows the child to feel the positive outcomes of their successes regularly throughout the therapeutic process which will motivate to not only participate in the activities, but also the positive outcomes that result from trying new things. Similarly to this, all attempts that a child makes in PRT are reinforced. This allows the entire learning experience to be enjoyable and positive for the child. Since the main goal of PRT is an increase in motivation, it is important to simply award the child for trying to master a new skill. This will give them encouragement in the future to attempt tasks that are particularly difficult for them rather than giving up or tantruming. Reinforcing attempts also helps to increase the child’s them rather than giving up or tantruming. Reinforcing attempts also helps to increase the child’s language skills because they learn the importance of using correct words in a social setting. Last, the importance of taking turns between the therapist and child is extremely important. This allows the therapist to model appropriate social behavior for the child to follow.

Success Evidence
Children who have undergone pivotal response training have made large improvements in behavioral and social areas. After PR therapy many children have increased language skills and have a greater understanding of appropriate times and contexts in which to use specific language. They are also able socially interact and play with peers for longer amounts of time and in more positive ways because of increased ability to pretend, social, and dramatic play. This ability to engage in different kinds of play with other children teaches and reinforces the child’s motivation and desire to play and learn social behaviors. They are also able to interact with a large variety of items, their reactivity to multiple stimuli has increased and therefore they are able to apply their play skills to several contexts. All of these improvements helps children to better interact in social settings which creates a less stressful environment for parents and peers.