Increasing Social Behaviors in Young Children with Social-Communication Delays in a Group Arrangement in Preschool

Young children with disabilities are less likely to display age-appropriate social behaviors than same-age peers with typical social development, especially children who display social-communication delays. In this study, two concurrently operating single case designs were used to evaluate the use of progressive time delay (PTD) to teach children with disabilities to share and to name peer preferences during dyadic instruction. PTD was effective for teaching children to share and to identify peer preferences. All participants generalized 50 to 100% of peer preference targets to typical classroom activities (e.g., selecting their peer's preferred snack before mealtime), with mixed results regarding sharing during an art activity.