Using Stay-Play-Talk To Increase Levels Of Initiations And Responses For Children With Social Delays

Abstract

Children with social delays may engage in lower rates of reciprocal peer interactions that can affect social communication development due to the lack of opportunity, deficits in play skills and joint attention. Researchers have identified Stay-Play Talk (SPT) as an effective peer-mediated strategy to increase socially significant changes and improvements in social interactions. However, there are gaps in the current research pertaining to increasing target child initiations, generalization and maintenance of behaviors, and as well as social validity. Building upon previous research, we implemented a class-wide stay-play-talk intervention with a behavior skills training component and system-of-least prompts procedure in an inclusive, university-based preschool consisting of two target children with social delays and nine peer participants. We used a multiple baseline design to measure target children’s frequency of stay, play and talk behaviors, as well as frequency of initiations, responses and narrative play statements. Findings show that despite the covariation between tiers, limited data points and limited confidence in the presence of a functional relation, levels of stay, play and talk for both participants were consistently higher during intervention sessions than during initial baseline sessions. Target children’s levels of verbal initiations also displayed an increasing trend throughout the intervention. Finally, “buddy time” or the class wide SPT intervention was seen as socially valid amongst most children.