SENTENCE COMBINING AS A TECHNIQUE FOR INCREASING ADJECTIVE USE IN WRITING BY STUDENTS WITH AUTISM

A multiple-baseline across-subjects design was used to determine wheth er reinforcement alone or in combination with sentence-combining exerc ises would increase the number of descriptive adjectives used in daily writing samples by three adolescents with autism. The cumulative numb er of new adjectives (adjectives never before used by a student in the entire study) was also recorded. Experimental conditions were baselin e, sentence combining, and maintenance. Writing sessions consisted of a 20-min worksheet period followed by a 20-min writing period The addi tion of sentence-combining exercises increased the number of adjective s in the students' writing samples. Maintenance of this increase occur red in the absence of sentence-combining lessons and in the presence o f reinforcement for use of adjectives. The addition of sentence-combin ing exercises also increased the cumulative number of new adjectives, although new adjectives did not occasion reinforcement, and we had not expected their use to increase in students with autism without specif ic instruction. Maintenance of new adjective use also was demonstrated Finally, for all three students, minimal terminable unit (T-unit) len gth, a measure that facilitates comparison with normative data, increa sed from baseline to maintenance, and independent raters judged writin g samples written during maintenance as better than those written duri ng baseline.