The findings did not support the widely reported generalisation ' difficulties ' associated with autism .
Research ers have generally considered autistic individuals to have difficulties generalising learned skills across novel context s. Successful generalisation is necessary for an intervention to have benefits in everyday life beyond the original learning environment .
We conducted a systematic review of r and omised controlled trials of early social communication interventions for children with autism in order to explore generalisation and its measurement .
Measuring child social communication across contexts: Similarities and differences across play and snack routines
Improving measurement of outcomes in r and omized controlled trials of early interventions for autism spectrum disorder ( ASD ) has been identified as a priority in the field . In addition , the importance of measurement across context s has been indicated by research ers and community stakeholders alike [ Lord et al. , ; McConachie et al. , ; Schreibman et al. , ] . The Brief Observation of Social Communication Change ( BOSCC ; Grzadzinski et al. , ) , an observational rating scheme of brief play interactions , was developed to address a need for measures that are reliable , sensitive to change , and valid for use in research setting s. The goal of this study was to examine the feasibility and utility of applying the BOSCC to a new context : a home snack routine . Results suggest that rating the BOSCC on home snack routines is feasible and psychometrically sound , and captures change in child social communication behaviors . However , the utility of the BOSCC for measuring restricted and repetitive behaviors ( RRBs ) is less clear . Nonetheless , differences in RRBs across play and snack lend support for the cl aim that measurement across context s is essential . Application of the BOSCC across context s may allow research ers to obtain a more accurate estimate of intervention response and help capture context ‐specific changes in social communication . It may also provide a method for research ers to evaluate the effect of context on child social communication more broadly . Autism Res 2019 , 12 : 636–644 . © 2019 International Society for Autism Research , Wiley Periodicals ,
The findings did not support the widely reported generalisation ' difficulties ' associated with autism .
Research ers have generally considered autistic individuals to have difficulties generalising learned skills across novel context s. Successful generalisation is necessary for an intervention to have benefits in everyday life beyond the original learning environment .
We conducted a systematic review of r and omised controlled trials of early social communication interventions for children with autism in order to explore generalisation and its measurement .