UC Santa Barbara

There is a considerable amount of literature reporting prosody is atypical in most individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), however there is almost no literature addressing interventions for improving these prosodic atypicialities. This study used a concurrent multiple baseline design to assess whether adults with ASD could be taught appropriate prosody within the context of a self-management program. Additionally, the study assessed whether improvements in prosody would generalize outside of the intervention setting to the participants' natural environments. Data showed improvements in prosody in the clinical setting following intervention with generalization for two of three participants across settings and conversational partners. Long-term generalization occurred for all the three participants, as well. Further, a six-point normalcy scale was used to assess whether naïve observers scored any collateral gains in how natural participants' general conversations sounded before and following the intervention. These observers rated the conversation as sounding more natural following intervention. Finally, data were collected to assess the participants' acceptability of the intervention, which participants found intervention helpful and unstressful. Results indicate that self-management may be an effective strategy for improving prosody in adults with ASD.