Effects of No-No Prompting on Teaching Expressive Labeling of

Effects of No-No Prompting on Teaching Expressive Labelingof Facial Expressions to Children with and without a

Pervasive Developmental Disorder

Justin B. Leaf, Misty L. Oppenheim-Leaf, Wesley H. Dotson,Valerie A. Johnson, Andrea B. Courtemanche, Jan B. Sheldon, and

James A. ShermanUniversity of Kansas

Abstract: Discrete trial teaching is a systematic form of instruction found to be effective for children diagnosedwith autism. Three areas of discrete trial teaching warranting more research are the effectiveness and efficiencyof various prompting procedures, the effectiveness of implementing teaching in a group instructional format,and the ability of children with autism to observationally learn from their peers. This study evaluated theeffectiveness of a no-no prompting procedure implemented in a group instructional format to teach five children,four of whom were diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder, to correctly label facial expressions. Addition-ally, this study evaluated whether participants observationally learned to expressively label facial expressions notdirectly taught to them but taught to their peers. Using a multiple baseline design, results of this study indicatedthat all participants learned to expressively label facial expressions taught to them directly with a no-noprompting procedure. The participants also learned through observation to expressively label facial expressionstaught only to their peers using the same procedure.

Discrete trial teaching is a systematic form ofinstruction that has been demonstrated to bean effective teaching technique for childrenwith autism (Lovaas, 1987; McEachin, Smith,& Lovaas, 1993). Discrete trial teaching gen-erally encompasses an instruction to thelearner, a prompt, a response from thelearner, and feedback that can be imple-mented in various ways. Researchers haveused this method to teach a variety of skills.For example, children with autism have beentaught language skills (Charlop & Walsh,1986; Matson, Sevin, Fridley, & Love, 1990),self-help skills (Sewell, Collins, Hemmeter, &Schuster, 1998), play skills (Akmanoglu &Batu, 2004), and academic skills (Soluaga,Leaf, Taubman, McEachin, & Leaf, 2008).Though discrete trial teaching is commonlyimplemented for children with autism, its im-plementation can vary and research is stillneeded on the most effective and efficient

methods of implementing discrete trial teach-ing.

One area that warrants future investigationinvolves identifying the most effective and ef-ficient prompting procedures for most chil-dren with autism. Although clinicians com-monly implement the no-no promptingprocedure (Harris & Weiss, 1998; Leaf &McEachin, 1999) and professionals recom-mend the procedure (Jones, Feely, & Takacs,2007; Leaf, Sheldon, & Sherman, 2010), thereare a limited number of empirical studies thathave specifically evaluated the no-no prompt-ing procedure. No-no prompting involves thedelivery of the instruction followed by aperiod of time during which the child hasthe opportunity to respond independently.Teachers provide positive reinforcement fol-lowing correct responses and corrective feed-back (e.g., “No,” “Uh-uh,” or “Try again”) forincorrect responses or no responses and thenrepeat the trial. Following two consecutive er-rors, teachers deliver a controlling promptwith the instructions.

Jones and colleagues (2007) evaluated theno-no prompting procedure as part of a larger

Correspondence concerning this article shouldbe addressed to Justin B. Leaf, 8799 Old SappingtonRoad, St. Louis, MO 63126. Email: [email protected]

Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities, 2011, 46(2), 186–203© Division on Autism and Developmental Disabilities

186 / Education and Training in Autism and Developmental Disabilities-June 2011

teaching package (i.e., starting with errorlesslearning and moving to no-no prompting) toteach two 3-year-old children with autism howto appropriately make verbal statements. Re-sults of this study suggested that the no-noprompting procedure, as part of a teachingpackage, may be effective in teaching verbalbehavior for children with autism. Leaf, Shel-don, and Sherman (2010) compared no-noprompting to simultaneous prompting ontwo-choice discrimination for three childrendiagnosed with autism. Leaf and colleaguesfound that no-no prompting was more effec-tive than simultaneous prompting for teach-ing three children with autism two-choice dis-criminations. The researchers hypothesizedthat no-no prompting was effective becausethe corrective feedback provided after incor-rect responses may have helped the partici-pant learn from exclusion (Carr, 2003; deRose, de Souza, & Hanna, 1996). Leaf andcolleagues questioned whether no-no prompt-ing alone would be effective in teaching chil-dren with autism different types of tasks otherthan receptive discriminations; the correctivefeedback provided by the teacher during dif-ferent types of tasks may be less informativedue to the number of available responses thatthe learner can display. For example, whenteaching a skill that would have an infinitenumber of responses (e.g., expressive label-ing, answering open-ended questions, socialskills), the teacher saying “no” might not leadto the learner making a correct response.

Another area of needed research about dis-crete trial teaching involves investigating theeffectiveness of instruction implemented in agroup instructional format. While discretetrial teaching is commonly carried out on aone-to-one basis, research has shown thatsmall group teaching formats can be used toteach children with autism expressive and re-ceptive language skills (e.g., Kamps, Dugan,Leonard, & Daoust, 1994), conversation skills(e.g., Palmen, Didden, & Arts, 2008), and pre-academic tasks (e.g., Taubman et al., 2001).Kamps, Walker, Maher, and Rotholz (1992)demonstrated that children with autism canbe successfully transitioned from one-to-oneto group instruction while maintaining learn-ing. When compared to a control group thatremained in the one-to-one environment,the experimental group that transitioned to

group-based instruction in the natural envi-ronment demonstrated higher rates of acqui-sition of new skills. Rotholz (1990) arguedthat in order to enhance social skill develop-ment, learning should occur with peers asmuch as possible. While one-to-one teachingmay be effective, it essentially isolates thelearner from their peers and the natural envi-ronment and, thus, may produce less general-ization. Therefore, it may be best to conductdiscrete trial teaching of social skills with agroup of peers rather than in an isolated one-to-one setting.

There are several possible advantages ofgroup instruction. First, group instructionmay be more efficient, especially when ateacher works with multiple children. Second,group instruction allows children with autismto be in close proximity with typically develop-ing peers, thus increasing the opportunitiesfor social interaction. Third, the group in-structional format more closely representswhat is found in general education class-rooms. Fourth, group instruction may bebeneficial for teachers when they have clientsdisplaying similar behavioral and academicdeficits since it may be more efficient andcost effective to provide instruction as part ofgroup rather than in a one-to-one arrange-ment. Finally, opportunities to learn may begreater in a group instructional format; chil-dren may learn by observing their peers re-ceive instruction, reinforcement, or feedbackfor correct or incorrect responses.

In order for observational learning oppor-tunities to be considered an advantage ofgroup instruction for children with autism, itmust first be demonstrated that they are ableto attend to their peers and learn observation-ally. Researchers have shown that observa-tional learning occurs with typically develop-ing children (Fickel, Schuster, & Collins,1998) as well as children with intellectual de-velopmental disabilities other than autism(Schoen & Sivil, 1989; Shelton, Gast, Wolery,& Winterling, 1991). For example, Schoenand Sivil found that observational learningof peer-received instruction with the teacherproviding attending cues were just as effectiveas one-to-one direct instruction at teachingself-help skills to young children with mild tosevere developmental delays.

Studies investigating observational learning

No-No Prompt for Facial Expressions / 187

of children with autism have reported mixedresults. Varni, Lovaas, Koegel, and Everett(1979) found that children with autism didnot learn observationally from others. Fifteenchildren with autism were unable to learn howto correctly label items, even after observingan adult correctly label and receive reinforce-ment on over 500 trials. There, however, areseveral limitations with this study. The partic-ipants enrolled all had severe delays, thus pro-viding no information on the observationallearning skills of higher functioning childrenwith autism. Additionally, instruction tookplace with one child, an adult model, and alead teacher. Therefore, it is unclear if chil-dren with autism would learn observationallyin a group consisting of peers rather than oneadult. Tryon and Keane (1986) showed thatthree boys with autistic-like characteristicswere able to learn appropriate toy play byobserving their peers receive reinforcementfor playing with the same toys appropriately.In 1988, Ihrig and Wolchik demonstrated thatfour boys with autism were able to observa-tionally learn after watching both peer andadult models receive reinforcement for cor-rectly answering a teacher’s questions. A lim-itation to both the Tryon and Keane and Ihrigand Wolchik (1988) studies was that the par-ticipants received reinforcement and correc-tive feedback for correct and incorrect re-sponding on probe trials. Therefore, theeffects are not a true test of observationallearning since one could argue that correctresponding occurred due to reinforcementand feedback rather than observational learn-ing alone.

Ledford, Gast, Luscre, and Ayres (2008) ex-amined the ability of six young children withautism (ages 5–8) to observationally learnsight words/phrases when working in dyads.Results suggested that 4 out of 6 participantswere able to learn 100% of the informationtaught to their peers; the other two studentswere able to learn 67% of the informationtaught to their peers. There are two limita-tions with this study; first, all children weregiven attending cues prior to all teaching in-structions; this may have affected the chil-dren’s ability to attend and learn their peer’starget information. Second, similar to Ihrigand Wolchik (1988), the children receivedreinforcement during probe trials for cor-

rectly responding to peers’ target informa-tion, resulting in the same concerns as previ-ously mentioned.

Overall, the literature on discrete trialteaching and observational learning with chil-dren with autism suggests a couple of areasrequiring further study. First, prompting sys-tems need to be more carefully evaluated.Second, the circumstances under which ob-servational learning during group-based in-struction does and does not occur need to bedocumented and identified.

The purpose of the current study was two-fold. First, the study evaluated the effective-ness of the no-no prompting system to teachfour children with autism and one typicallydeveloping child to expressively label picturesof various facial expressions in a group setting.Second, the study examined whether partici-pants could learn to correctly label picturesof various facial expressions that were not di-rectly taught to them, but rather where theparticipant had the opportunity to observemodels from peers, models from the teacheras part of the no-no prompting procedure,and observe peers receive intervention andthus reinforcement for correctly labelingthose facial expressions.

Method

Participants

Five children, four diagnosed on the autismspectrum and one typically developing child,participated in this study. The researchersplaced three of the five children (Buddy, Lisa,and Brady) into a small group and placed theother two children (Hank and Jeremy) into adyadic pair. All participants displayed gener-alized imitation, understood the word “no,”and had a previous history of discrete trialteaching. Additionally, Brady and Jeremy hada previous history with the no-no promptingprocedure used in this study.

Buddy was a 5-year-old boy diagnosed withautism. Buddy had a Mullens Scales of EarlyLearning standard score of 87, a Gilliam Au-tism Rating Scale (GARS) autism quotient of98, and a Social Skills Rating Scale–Parent(SSRS-P) standard score of 63. Buddy spoke infull sentences, had moderate play, and had


some self-stimulatory behaviors (e.g., toe walk-ing, hand flapping, and vocal stereotypy).

Brady was a 6-year-old boy diagnosed withautism. Brady had a SSRS-P standard score of98. Brady spoke in full sentences, had limitedplay, had numerous self-stimulatory behaviors(e.g., hand flapping, repeating questions, andperseverations), and engaged in some non-compliant behaviors (e.g., elopement, flop-ping, and answering questions incorrectly).

Lisa was a typically developing 3-year-oldgirl. Since her brother was diagnosed withautism, she was considered at risk for a perva-sive development disorder. Lisa’s SSRS-P stan-dard score was 120. Lisa spoke in full sen-tences, had advanced play, and engaged insome non-compliant behaviors (e.g., not an-swering questions).

The dyadic pair consisted of two children,Hank and Jeremy. Hank was a 4-year-old boydiagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Dis-order-Not Otherwise Specified. Hank had aWPPSI-III full IQ score of 117, a VinelandAdaptive Behavior Composite standard scoreof 82, and a SSRS-P standard score of 67.Hank spoke in full sentences, had limitedplay, displayed aggression (e.g., hitting others,kicking others, biting others), had some self-stimulatory behaviors (e.g., pretending to bemachines, spinning, and vocal stim), dis-played non-compliant behaviors, and engagedin tantrums.

Jeremy was a 5-year-old boy diagnosed withautism. Jeremy had a WPPSI-III full IQ scoreof 89 and a SSRS-P standard score of 59. Jer-emy spoke in full sentences, had moderateplay, had some self-stimulatory behaviors(e.g., vocal stereotypy), and engaged in ag-gressive behaviors.

Setting

This study took place in a social skills groupwithin a preschool classroom at a mid-westernuniversity. The social skills group met twice aweek for 1.5 hours per meeting. The pre-school classroom had two indoor play areaswith access to an outdoor play area. Duringeach group meeting, participants engaged intwo instructional periods designed to teachthe target skills of this study, engaged in struc-tured and unstructured games and activities(e.g., duck-duck-goose, painting, reading sto-

ries), and participated in learning of othersocial skills that were not related to the pres-ent study (e.g., practicing social communica-tion).

Researchers conducted research sessionstwice per social skills group with at least anhour between each research session. Whileone group received intervention, the othergroup engaged in an alternative activity at theopposite end of the classroom. During re-search sessions, the participants sat in chairsat a small table facing the lead teacher. Asupport teacher sat directly behind the partic-ipants and controlled inappropriate behaviorif it occurred. For example, if the participantwas rocking in his or her chair, the supportteacher would sit behind that child and pre-vent him or her from rocking. The supportteacher, however, neither reinforced norprompted any of the participants.

Skills Taught

The researchers evaluated the no-no prompt-ing procedure in teaching five participantshow to expressively label emotions using5.5� � 8.5� picture cards displaying childrenshowing different facial expressions. The fa-cial expression cards were from a commer-cially sold set available in a teacher supplystore. The group of three children (Buddy,Lisa, and Brady) were taught to label threedifferent emotions. The dyadic pair (Hankand Jeremy) was taught to label four differentemotions.

Table 1 contains information about whichskills the investigators taught to each of theparticipants and which skills were learnedthrough observations of the peers and teach-ers alone. One emotion that the researcherstaught was “excited.” The “excited” card con-sisted of a young girl looking in an upwardsdirection, with a smile that shows teeth, herhands clinched together under her chin, andholding a blanket. Another emotion that re-searchers taught participants was “bored.”The “bored” card consisted of a young boyresting his head in the palm of his hand, withhis head tilted from left to right, eyes partiallyclosed, and a neutral facial expression on hisface. The researchers also taught participantsto label “confused.” The “confused” card con-sisted of a different young boy looking straight


ahead, with his eyes squinted (left eye moresquinted than his right), eyebrows raised, aslightly upward smirk on his face, and dimplesshowing on the side of his cheeks. Finally, theresearchers taught “surprised” which con-sisted of a young girl with her eyes wide open,both hands above her mouth, and a grin thatcould be seen through her hands.

In addition to the emotion cards, research-ers also asked each participant to label twocommonly known cartoon characters (MickeyMouse© and Spongebob Squarepants©)throughout the study. The researchers askedparticipants to label these cartoon charactersso that the participants could have an oppor-tunity to respond to questions and thus re-ceive reinforcement when they were not di-rectly receiving intervention on a targetedfacial expression.

Dependent Variable

Several measures were taken throughout thestudy. The primary measure was participants’correct expressive labeling of facial expres-sions directly taught to them (e.g., receivingteacher modeling, reinforcement, and prompt-ing). Expressive labels were measured duringprobe trials (i.e., non reinforced and nonprompted trials). The researchers directlytaught Buddy, Brady, and Lisa to expressivelylabel one facial expression each and Hankand Jeremy to expressively label two facial ex-pressions each. Mastery criterion for skills thatwere directly taught to participants was setat 100% correct responding on probe trialsacross three consecutive research sessions.

The second measure was participants’ cor-rect expressive labeling of facial expressions

not directly taught to them (i.e., not receivingany prompting or reinforcement for respond-ing correctly). The researchers wanted to eval-uate whether participants could correctly la-bel facial expressions from watching theirpeers modeling the behavior, peers receiv-ing reinforcement for correct responding,and the teacher modeling the correct behav-ior as part of the prompting procedure (i.e.,observational learning). All participants wereassessed on two facial expressions not directlytaught to them, which they were exposed tothrough observational learning.

The third measure that researchers evalu-ated was participants’ maintenance of expres-sive labels following teaching. Maintenancewas assessed through probe trials. The fourthmeasure was participants’ ability to generalizeexpressive labels of facial expressions from thepictures of children used during teaching topictures of known adults displaying the samefacial expressions. The researchers evaluatedgeneralization of expressive labels taught bothdirectly and indirectly to participants duringprobe trials. The final measures were relatedto the efficiency of teaching during the teach-ing sessions. The researchers examined thetotal number of teaching trials for each par-ticipant, the percentage of trials correct, thepercentage of trials that were incorrect, andthe percentage of trials in which the re-searcher prompted the participant.

General Procedure

Each research session lasted approximately 15min. During each session, researchers usedthe no-no prompting procedure to teach thedifferent facial expressions described above.

TABLE 1

Skills Taught and Learned Observationally

ParticipantFirst Skill

Directly TaughtSecond Skill

Directly TaughtFirst Observational

Learning SkillSecond Observational

Learning Skill

Buddy Excited N/A Bored ConfusedLisa Bored N/A Excited ConfusedBrady Confused N/A Excited BoredHank Surprised Excited Bored ConfusedJeremy Bored Confused Surprised Excited


Each research session consisted of both teach-ing trials and probe trials. Both types of trialsconsisted of the researcher holding up one ofthe cards, stating one of the participant’snames, and providing the participant with aninstruction to label the picture (e.g., “Brady,how does the boy feel?”). There were threemajor differences between teaching trials andprobe trials. During teaching trials, the re-searcher (a) provided the learner with positivereinforcement (i.e., praise, ticket, and tangi-ble item) for correct responses; (b) providedcorrective feedback (i.e., “No that’s not it”)for incorrect or no responses; and (c) pro-vided the learner with a prompt followingtwo consecutive incorrect trials. During probetrials, however, the researchers provided noprompting, no reinforcement, and no cor-rective feedback to the participants. The re-searchers conducted all teaching and probetrials in either a group or dyadic instructionalformat where the researcher asked each of theparticipants to respond to an instruction (i.e.,label one of the emotions) one at a time. Theresearchers randomly determined the orderof the trials and the order of instructions tothe participants. If at any time a participantresponded to a question when it was not his orher turn, the researchers ignored the behav-ior, although this rarely occurred.

A token economy in which participantsearned tickets for various desirable behaviors,was used during meetings of the social skillsgroup and during research sessions for thecurrent study. Participants could trade ticketsearned at the end of the entire social skillsgroup for tangible items such as bouncy balls,stuffed animals, light-up toys, and whoopeecushions. In the present study, participantsearned tickets for correctly labeling facial ex-pressions directly taught to them.

Type of Trials

Teaching trials of target skills. The first typeof trial was a teaching trial of target skills.Teaching trials consisted of the researchersimplementing the no-no prompting proce-dure (Leaf & McEachin, 1999) to teach ex-pressive labels of emotions. The teaching trialstarted with the researcher holding up anemotion card in front of the group and askinga specific participant to label the emotion

(e.g., “Brady, how does the boy feel?”). Partic-ipants were given 4 s to label the emotion.If the participant responded correctly, thenthe researcher provided a praise statement(“great,” “very good,” “excellent”), handedthe participant a preferred toy to play with for5 s, and provided a ticket to the participant.After 5 s, the researcher took back the toy andmoved on to the next pre-determined trialwhich could be to any of the participants andcould be either a teaching trial or a probetrial.

If the participant did not correctly label theemotion on the first trial, or did not respondwithin 4 s of the instruction, the researchersaid “No, that’s not it” in a neutral voice toneand repeated the same instruction (e.g.,“Brady, how does the boy feel?”). If the par-ticipant labeled the emotion correctly on thesecond attempt, the teacher provided praiseto the participant and placed a ticket in hisor her cup but did not provide a preferred toyto the participant. The researcher then movedon to the next pre-determined trial whichcould be to any of the participants and couldbe either a teaching trial or a probe trial. Ifthe participant once again labeled the emo-tion incorrectly a second time or did notrespond within 4 s of the instruction, theteacher said, “No, that’s not it” in a neutralvoice tone and repeated the same instructionfor a third time (e.g., “Brady, how does theboy feel?”). Immediately after asking the ques-tion a third time, the researcher provided averbal model prompt (e.g., “She feels an-gry.”). If the participant repeated the re-sponse correctly within 4 s of the verbal modelprompt, then the researcher provided socialpraise but did not provide tickets or a pre-ferred toy to the participant. If the participantstill did not respond correctly, then the re-searcher reminded the participant that he orshe was working for toys and tickets. Aftereither a correct or incorrect prompted re-sponse on the third attempt, the researchermoved on to the next pre-determined trialwhich could be to any of the participants andcould be either a teaching trial or a probetrial.

Teaching trials of cartoon characters. The sec-ond type of trial was teaching trials of cartooncharacters. During intervention, participantsnot currently receiving teaching trials for a


target skill received teaching trials to learn thenames of common cartoon characters (e.g.,Mickey Mouse©). The purpose of these trialswas to provide all participants with an opportu-nity to earn reinforcement during research ses-sions, even when not currently receiving teach-ing trials for a target skill. Teaching trials ofcartoon characters were conducted in an iden-tical manner to teaching trials of target skills.

Probe trials. The third type of trial was aprobe trial. The researchers evaluated skillacquisition for each of the participants withprobe trials. During probe trials, the research-ers did not provide any reinforcement, correc-tive feedback, or prompting to the partici-pant. Probe trials consisted of the researcherholding up one of the emotion picture cardsor a picture of a commonly known cartooncharacter so that all participants could seethe card, stating one of the participant’snames, and providing an instruction to labelthe picture (e.g., “Brady, how does the boyfeel?” or “Brady, what is his name?”). Next, theparticipant had 4 s to make a response. If theparticipant made any response (correct or in-correct), the teacher would restate the partic-ipant’s response and thank the participantfor answering the question (e.g., “Sad, thanksfor telling me.” “Hippopotamus, thanks fortelling me.”). After either a correct response,incorrect response, or no response, the re-searcher moved on to the next pre-deter-mined trial which could be to any of the par-ticipant and could be either a teaching trial ora probe trial. Only the first response that theparticipant made was scored.

Response Definitions

Participants could engage in three types ofresponses during probe trials. The first type ofresponse was a correct response. A correctresponse was defined as the participant cor-rectly expressively labeling (e.g., saying “sur-prised” if the picture displayed a facial expres-sion of the emotion surprised) the card within4 s of the instruction. The second type ofresponse was an incorrect response. An incor-rect response was defined as the participantverbally labeling or saying any word that didnot correspond to the card shown to them(e.g., participant saying either “angry” or“bread” when shown a picture of a child dis-

playing the facial expression surprised). Thethird type of response was a no response,which was defined as the participant not say-ing any word within the four seconds providedto them.

During teaching trials, participants couldengage in two additional types of responses.The first additional response was a promptedcorrect response. A prompted correct re-sponse was defined as the participant correctlylabeling the picture that was shown to him orher only after the teacher provided the partic-ipant with a verbal model. The second addi-tional response was a prompted incorrect re-sponse. A prompted incorrect response wasdefined as the participant incorrectly labelingthe picture that was shown to him or her orproviding no response after the teacher pro-vided him or her with a verbal model.

Experimental Conditions

This research study consisted of four condi-tions (baseline, intervention, post-teachingmaintenance, and generalization) assessingwhether participants were able to correctlylabel facial expressions. The first and fourthauthor conducted all research sessions. Dur-ing baseline sessions, the researchers testedwhether the participants already knew how tocorrectly label the various emotions to betaught. During intervention, the researchersused the no-no prompting procedure to teachemotions directly and indirectly to each of theparticipants. The post-teaching maintenancecondition assessed long-term maintenance ofskills directly and indirectly taught to each ofthe participants. The generalization conditionwas used to assess whether or not participantsgeneralized the labeling of emotions from pic-tures of children to pictures of known adults.Table 2 provides information on the totalnumber of trials, total number of probe trials,and the total number of teaching trials foreach of the four conditions.

Baseline condition. Each session within thebaseline condition consisted of a total of 18probe trials (described above) for Buddy,Brady, and Lisa and a total of 24 probe trialsfor Hank and Jeremy. Buddy, Brady, and Lisaeach received six probe trials per session (twoper emotion). Hank and Larry each received12 probe trials per session (three per emo-


tion). The order of both emotions and partic-ipants probed during each trial were ran-domly determined prior to each baselinesession. No participant received more thantwo consecutive trials in a row and no emotionwas presented more than two consecutive tri-als in a row. Since the researchers did notprompt or reinforce any probe trials, and be-cause no other type of trial was conductedduring baseline, the researchers provided par-ticipants with preferred toys every fourth trialcontingent upon compliant behavior (e.g., sit-ting in their chair, paying attention, avoidingself-stimulatory behavior) to maintain atten-tion to the task.

Intervention. The researchers implementedboth probe trials (described above) and teach-ing trials (described above) during the inter-vention condition. The researchers imple-mented between 41 and 75 trials (probe andteaching) during each intervention session forBuddy, Brady, and Lisa, depending on thenumber of teaching trials needed. The re-searchers implemented between 30 and 54trials (probe and teaching) during each inter-

vention session for Hank and Jeremy, depend-ing on the number of teaching trials imple-mented. Table 2 provides information on thenumber of probe and teaching trials duringthe intervention condition for each of thegroups. When directly being taught a facialexpression, participants received a total of fiveto 15 teaching trials (depending upon theirresponse) for facial expressions and two to sixteaching trials for pictures of cartoon charac-ters. The order of probe trials and teachingtrials was randomly pre-determined prior tothe research session. An analysis of how oftena probe trial immediately followed a teachingtrial is provided in Table 3. This addresses theissue of whether participants were just repeat-ing the same response as in the previous trial.Thus, Table 3 provides information on thepercentage of probe trials for the emotioncurrently being intervened on that were im-mediately preceded by a teaching trial for thatemotion, were two trials removed from ateaching trial for that emotion, or were threeor more trials removed from a teaching trialfor that emotion.

TABLE 2

Trials per Condition

Condition TrialsGroup 1 (Buddy, Lisa,

and Brady)Group 2

(Hank and Jeremy)

Baseline andPost-Teaching Total number of trials 18 24

Baseline andPost-Teaching Number of trials per participant 6 (2 per emotion) 12 (3 per emotion)

Intervention Total number of trials

41 to 75 (depending onnumber of teaching

trials)

30 to 54 (dependingon number ofteaching trials)

Intervention

Participant receivingintervention; teaching trialson targeted skill 5 to 15 5 to 15

Intervention

Participant receivingintervention; teaching trialson cartoon character 2 to 6 2 to 6

Intervention

Participants not receivingintervention; teaching trialson cartoon characters

10 to 30 (5 to 15 perparticipant) 5 to 15

Intervention Probe trials on targeted skills18 (6 per participant;2 per targeted skill)

16 (8 per participant;2 per targeted skill)

InterventionProbe trials on cartoon

characters 6 (2 per participant) 2 (1 per participant)Generalization Total number of trials 18 24Generalization Number of trials per participant 6 (2 per emotion) 12 (3 per emotion)


Post-teaching. The third condition of thisstudy was a post-teaching condition. Duringpost-teaching, the researchers assessed partic-ipants’ maintenance of expressive labeling ofemotions directly or indirectly taught to them.The post-teaching condition was implementedup to 2 months after the intervention condi-tion had been concluded. The post-teachingsession was conducted in an identical way asthe baseline condition.

Generalization. The final condition in thisstudy was a generalization condition. General-ization sessions occurred simultaneously withthe baseline condition and following the post-teaching condition. During generalization ses-sions, researchers implemented probe trials toassess whether or not participants could ex-pressively label emotions shown in pictures ofknown adults rather than the pictures of chil-dren used in the experimental conditions.Generalization sessions were conducted in anidentical manner as the baseline sessions.

Design

The investigators implemented a multiplebaseline design using different skills taughtacross participants. The design was replicatedacross both sets of participants. A pre-post testof generalization was used to evaluate whetherparticipants would generalize labeling of chil-dren displaying facial expressions to picturesof adults demonstrating similar facial expres-sions.

Inter-observer Agreement

Both dependent variable and independentvariable reliability were evaluated in this study.During sessions, the researcher scored dataon each participant’s responses for every trial.

To evaluate dependent variable reliability, asecond independent observer simultaneouslyrecorded the same responses of the partici-pants during 77.3% of experimental sessions.Dependent variable reliability was calculatedby dividing the number of agreements (i.e.,when both the researcher and the indepen-dent scorer recorded the same behavior) ofparticipants’ responses by the number ofagreements plus disagreements (i.e., when theteacher and the independent scorer disagreedon the participant behavior) and convertingthis ratio to a percentage. Dependent variablereliability for this study was 98.5% (range83.33–100%).

Two scorers independently recordedteacher behaviors via videotapes in 41.9% ofall intervention sessions in order to evaluatetreatment integrity for the no-no promptingprocedure. At least one measure of treatmentfidelity was taken in every teaching conditionfor every participant. Instructor behaviorsscored for correct implementation of theno-no prompting procedures were: (1) pro-vide correct instruction, (2) provide a “no”correctly, (3) provide a prompt only after twoconsecutive incorrect responses, (4) providethe toy correctly, (5) provide the ticket cor-rectly, and (6) provide social praise correctly.Instructor behaviors for probe trials were:(1) provide correct instruction, (2) providethe correct consequence, (3) provide no tan-gible reinforcement, and (4) provide no de-scriptive reinforcement.

Independent variable reliability was calcu-lated using a point-by-point method. Two in-dependent observers scored each of the com-ponents of the trials (described above) andthen compared the two records, totaling thenumber of agreements (i.e., trials in whichboth observers scored the same instructor be-havior) of instructor behavior, dividing by thenumber of agreements plus disagreements(i.e., trials in which the two observers scoreddifferent instructor behavior), and convertingthis ratio to a percentage. Treatment integrityacross probes and teaching trials was 97.9%(range 94.4%–100%). The only trials thatteachers implemented incorrectly were teach-ing trials of cartoon characters. Agreementbetween the two scorers was 100%.

TABLE 3

Percent of Probe Trials of Current Skill Precededby a Teaching Trial

ParticipantNextTrial

2 TrialsRemoved

3 or MoreTrials

Removed

Targeted participant 22.6% 14.5% 62.9%Observational learning

participants 9.4% 16.7% 73.9%Total 14.6% 15.8% 69.6%


Results

Skills Directly Taught

The results of the study indicated that all fiveparticipants met the mastery criteria of accu-rately labeling the emotion directly taught tothem 100% of the time for three consecutivesessions for each skill they were taught. Allparticipants learned all of the expressive la-bels directly taught to them. Figure 1 shows

the results for Buddy, Lisa, and Brady, andFigure 2 shows the results for Jeremy andHank. All five participants demonstrated base-line levels of zero percent correct responding,followed by mastery level performance onlywhen intervention was implemented. Partici-pants reached mastery criterion within threeto nine sessions. All five participants were ableto label emotions correctly up to two monthsafter intervention was completed.

Figure 1. Acquisition Graph for Buddy, Lisa, and Brady.


Skills Indirectly Taught

All five participants displayed above baselinelevels of correctly labeling emotions for whichthey had only seen peers receiving instruction

and for which they had received no directinstruction themselves. The amount of obser-vational learning demonstrated by the partic-ipants varied. Figure 3 represents acquisition

Figure 2. Acquisition of Hank and Jeremy.


of emotions indirectly taught to Buddy andLisa, Figure 4 represents acquisition of emo-tions indirectly taught to Brady, and Figure 5represents acquisition of emotions indirectlytaught to Jeremy and Hank.

In group 1, Buddy increased both of hisobservational learning targets of “bored”(taught to Lisa) and “confused” (taught toBrady) from baseline levels of 0% correctresponding to 100% correct responding (seeFigure 3). Buddy maintained his level of per-

formance during post-teaching. Lisa increasedboth of her observational learning targets of“excited” (taught to Buddy) and “confused”(taught to Brady) from baseline levels of 0%correct responding to 100% correct respond-ing (see Figure 3) and maintained that per-formance in the post-teaching condition.Brady increased both of his observationallearning targets of “excited” (taught toBuddy) and “bored” (taught to Lisa) frombaseline levels of 0% correct responding to

Figure 3. Observational Data for Buddy and Lisa.


100% correct responding (see Figure 4) andmaintained most of that performance dur-ing the post-teaching condition. In group 2,Jeremy increased his observational learningtargets (“surprised” and “excited”) taught toHank from 0% correct responding duringbaseline to 100% during the interventionand post-teaching phases. Hank increased hisobservational learning targets (“bored” and“confused”) taught to Jeremy from 0% correctresponding during baseline to 100% duringthe intervention and post-teaching phases.

Generalization Data

Table 4 depicts the generalization data for allfive participants. The researchers conducted apre-post test to determine generalization from

one picture of a child to another picture of aknown adult displaying the same emotion.Participants showed some generalization forthree of the four target emotions (“bored,”“surprised,” “excited”) but did not generalizetheir labeling of confused.

Teaching Trials

The investigators evaluated the total numberof teaching trials, percentage of teaching trialscorrect, percentage of teaching trials incor-rect, and percentage of prompted teachingtrials for each participant. Table 5 providesinformation for each of the participants dur-ing teaching trials. On average, participantsrequired 30.28 teaching trials to acquire theemotion directly taught to them.

Figure 4. Observational Data for Brady.


Figure 5. Observational Data for Jeremy and Hank.


Discussion

Five children, four diagnosed with autism,learned to expressively label correctly picturesdisplaying facial expressions after teachingwith a no-no prompting procedure was imple-mented via small group instruction and con-tinued to correctly label facial expressions upto 2 months after intervention. Participantsalso improved their ability to correctly labelfacial expressions not directly taught to them.It appears that participants were able to learnto label facial expressions not taught directlyto them through observing the instruction de-

livered to their peers via the no-no promptingprocedure. Thus, the participants were ableto learn facial expressions via observationallearning. Additionally, participants partiallygeneralized correct labeling of facial expres-sions from pictures of children to pictures ofknown adults. The results of this study expandthe literature and clinical use of the no-noprompting procedure and group instructionin numerous ways.

This study demonstrates that no-no prompt-ing is an effective prompting procedure forteaching children with autism to expressively

TABLE 4

Generalization of Target Skills to Pictures of Known Adults

Participant Target Facial Expression Pre Test Score Post Test Score 1 Post Test Score 2

Buddy Excited 0% 100% 100%Bored 0% 16.7% 50%Confused 0% 0% 0%

Lisa Bored 0% 50% 100%Excited 0% 100% 100%Confused 0% 0% 0%

Brady Confused 0% 100% 100%Excited 0% 100% 100%Bored 0% 0% 0%

Hank Surprised 33% 33% N/AExcited 0% 66% N/ABored 0% 33% N/AConfused 0% 0% N/A

Jeremy Bored 0% 66% N/AConfused 0% 0% N/ASurprised 0% 100% N/AExcited 0% 0% N/A

TABLE 5

Teaching Trial Data

ParticipantNumber of

Teaching Trials Correct Trials Incorrect TrialsPrompted

Correct TrialsPrompted

Incorrect Trials

Buddy 61 37 (60.7%) 16 (26.2%) 1 (1.6%) 7 (11.4%)Lisa 31 23 (74.2%) 6 (19.4%) 2 (6.4%) 0 (0%)Brady 17 14 (82.4%) 2 (11.8%) 1 (5.8%) 0 (0%)Hank (Skill 1) 19 15 (78.9%) 4 (21.1%) 0 (0%) 0 (0%)Jeremy (Skill 1) 20 14 (70%) 5 (25%) 1 (5%) 0 (0%)Hank (Skill 2) 44 17 (38.6%) 19 (43.2%) 7 (15.9%) 1 (2.3%)Jeremy (Skill 2) 20 13 (65%) 5 (25%) 2 (10%) 0 (0%)Total 212 133 (62.7%) 57 (26.9%) 14 (6.6%) 8 (3.8%)


label emotions. Jones and colleagues (2007)implemented the no-no prompting procedureas part of a larger teaching package and Leafand colleagues (2010) demonstrated the ef-fectiveness of no-no prompting within two-choice discrimination training. Though theno-no prompting procedure has been widelyimplemented with children with autism andhas been recommended by clinicians (Harris& Weiss, 1998), the research to date has notinvolved teaching open-ended responses suchas expressive labels where an infinite numberof responses are possible.

This study also provides further empiricalsupport of the effectiveness of group instruc-tion for teaching children with autism. Manyresearchers and clinicians have stated that amain benefit of group instruction for childrenwith autism is that they may observationallylearn from their peers or teachers while par-ticipating in group instruction and that suchobservational learning may increase the effi-ciency of instruction (Leaf, Taubman, &McEachin, 2008; Ledford et al., 2008; Taub-man et al., 2001). Research, however, hasshown that children with autism may havedifficulty observationally learning (Varni etal., 1979). Only recently has research docu-mented the effectiveness of group instructionfor children with autism. While the literaturehas shown that children with autism are ableto learn during group instruction (Kamps etal., 1994; Palmen et al., 2008; Taubman et al.,2001), few studies have investigated whetherchildren with autism may be able to observa-tionally learn during instruction (Kamps,Walker, Maher, & Rotholz, 1992; Ledford etal., 2008). This study adds to that growingbody of research. All participants learned toexpressively label facial expressions that theyonly saw taught to other children. For obser-vational learning target skills, children re-ceived no general or specific attentional cuesduring instruction or any reinforcement orcorrective feedback for responding duringprobe trials. These results suggest that, at leastfor some children with autism, observationallearning occurs during group instruction.

One limitation is that teachers imple-mented all probe trials across all conditionsin a group instructional setting. Conductingprobe trials in a group setting leaves the pos-sibility for participants inadvertently being

prompted by their peers (e.g., peers answer-ing the questions out of turn). Although thiswas a possibility, it never occurred duringprobe trials and only rarely occurred duringteaching trials. Future researchers, however,may wish to implement probes in a one-to-onesetting rather than a group format to ensurethat participants do not receive a peerprompt.

A second limitation is that although partic-ipants showed observational learning, it is notclear what components (i.e., peer modeling,participant watching teacher modeling, par-ticipant watching peer receive reinforcementfor correct responding, or participant watch-ing peers receive corrective feedback for in-correct responding) of the procedure imple-mented in the study were responsible for thisbehavioral change. Future researchers maywish to evaluate which components are neces-sary for this behavior change to occur. Addi-tionally, future researchers may wish to eithercontrol the number of prompts that the teach-ers provide or provide a model in a way whereother group members would be unaware ofthe model being provided (e.g., using a writ-ten prompt rather than a verbal model).

An additional limitation is that participantsdisplayed only limited generalization when la-beling facial expressions from pictures of chil-dren to pictures of known adults. In addition,only Brady was able to correctly label the pic-ture of confused during the generalizationpost-test. Since labeling was only taught usingpictures, and generalized responding did notreliably occur, it is not known if participantscould recognize facial expressions or emo-tions displayed by real people in actual situa-tions. Also, it is not clear if participants actu-ally learned a correspondence between facialexpressions and emotions or if they simplylearned a label for a picture. Future researchshould address whether participants learn tosimply label a picture or if they learn to rec-ognize how people actually display emotions.

Finally, numerous questions remain aboutthe no-no prompting procedure. First, mostof the children in this and in the previous Leafet al. study (2010) would be consideredhigher functioning and thus it is not knownhow effective the no-no prompting procedurewould be with lower functioning children.Second, while participants in this study dis-


played no self-injurious or aggressive behaviorwhen provided with the corrective feedback, itis not clear how some children with moremaladaptive behaviors would respond to be-ing provided with corrective feedback. Third,it is not known what, if any, pre-requisite skillsare necessary for children with autism to learnfrom the no-no prompting procedure. It isalso still not clear how effective the no-noprompting procedure would be for more com-plex skills such as self-help skills, conversationskills, and social skills. Future researchers maywish to address these questions.

In summary, this study showed that no-noprompting was an effective teaching proce-dure for teaching five children, four with au-tism, to expressively label facial expressions.Furthermore, all participants observationallylearned targets not directly taught to them.Future research should concentrate on ex-panding the evaluation of the no-no prompt-ing procedure and the circumstances underwhich observational learning occurs duringgroup instruction for children with autism.

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Received: 1 March 2010Initial Acceptance: 26 April 2010Final Acceptance: 1 August 2010


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