Single Subject Review on an Article on Autism

Single Subject Article Review
1. APA Citation
Delano, M.E., (2007). Use of strategy instruction to improve story writing skills of a student with asperger syndrome. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities Volume (22.4) 252-258.
2. Article Elements
a. Type of Design-a multiple baseline across responses
b. IV- writing probes/skills
c. DV- number of revisions, describing words, and action words
d. Functional Relationship- There is a functional relationship and it was demonstrated because of the increase in the number of revisions, describing words, and action words as illustrated by the graphs after the post training and follow up.
e. Experimental Control- Experimental control was demonstrated because all of the experimental sessions took place near the researchers office.
f. Functional Analysis- no there is not
g. Operational Definition- the operational definition for writing probes/skills is the number of action words, the number of describing words, and the number of revisions.
h. Social Validity- The article states that there could be a threat to the validity because of the small size of the sample used for this intervention. In my opinion this intervention is socially valid because the treatment targeted for change and the treatment are accepted and consumer satisfaction is reached. There is enough recorded data to show the effectiveness of this intervention therefore showing a promising future with this intervention.
i. Reliability- Interobserver agreement was assessed across all of the experimental conditions. An agreement check was conducted with all of the writing samples. There was an agreement ratio that was calculated for each dependent measure by dividing the smaller total by the larger total and then multiplying by 100. An agreement ratio of 100% was obtained for total words written and revisions. The agreement ranged from 83% through 100% for action words (M = 97%), 80% to 100% (M = 96%) for describing words, and 80% through 100% (M = 95%) for quality.
j. Baseline Phase – Vincent’s stories consisted of short sentences and he wrote no more than 11 words per writing sample. His stories had only one or two action words and did not have descriptive words. Vincent also did not make any revisions to his writing. The baseline information was collected from the researcher, who randomly selected three different picture prompts and asked Vincent to write a story about the prompt, then after a break he would ask him to read the story he wrote and if Vincent thought there needed to be revisions he would record that on a flip chart.
a. Intervention Phase- The intervention phase s where Vincent was the self-regulated strategy development. This intervention consist of three involves planning, drafting, self-monitoring, and revising text. This intervention provides specific instruction and Vincent was trained in each of the four strategies before being asked to do what it they were teaching and assessing him in those areas. Overall the intervention was a way to teach Vincent self-regulation and writing strategies.
b. Misc- the use of picture writing prompts.