The Facilitation of Children's Social Interaction by a Picture-Cue Training Program

A social-interaction training procedure employing picture cues (photographs of play materials in their settings), prompts, and reinforcement was investigated to determine its effcct on subject-peer and subject-teacher interaction. The picture cues were designed to facilitate social interaction between three socially deficient language-delayed 4- to 6-year-old children and their respective classroom peers. One target child was deaf, one was unusually aggressive, and one was an elective mute. The picture-cue technique was designed to minimize reacher involvement: it allowed onc child to invite another to interact by displaying a picture of the interaction desired. Despite the children's differences, appropriate social interaction increased dramatically over each child's bascline rate during the Picture-Cue Conditions, required less tcacher time than traditionaI prompting procedures, and increased the functional aspect of naturally maintaining contingencies. This result may have been influenced by prompting procedures used in earlier conditions. The results indicate that picture cues facilitate communication and allow independent social interaction, and thus are functional and efficient mediating devices.