Pivotal Response Treatment

Select one of the following:

1. A nonverbal child reaches for the light switch to turn on and off the light. A practitioner stops the child and redirects the child to vocalize for a ball he is holding. The child does not respond or attempt to obtain the ball and instead goes back over to the light and turns it off.
2. When a mom sees her nonverbal child playing with a ball ramp game, she puts down the book she was going to read to him and goes over to the ball ramp toy. Mom repeatedly says the word “ball” while trying to get her son’s attention as her son continues to put the balls down the ramp.
3. Dad notices his two-year-old nonverbal son keeps going inside the laundry basket and is avoiding playing cars with him. Dad goes over to the basket and picks it up and puts it down with his son inside. His son smiles and nonverbally indicates he wants more. Before picking it up, Dad gets his son’s attention and models “up,” and picks it up and puts it back down a couple of times in a row. The child still indicates he wants to go up again, but this time dad models, “up” and waits for the child to attempt to vocalize “up” before he lifts him up. After 3 seconds, the child finally says, “aah,” and dad immediately and enthusiastically lifts up the laundry basket while clearly and enthusiastically recasting, “Up!”
4. A practitioner selects multiple flashcards of items she knows the three-year-old toddler prefers. She sits with her on the carpet in the playroom (the natural environment) and then provides ten trials in a row asking the child, “What’s this?” for each card. The child gets to briefly play with either a squishy ball or spin toy (determined through a brief reinforcer assessment) for correct responses.

Select one of the following:

1. When the toddler asks where an item is, you go get the item and give it to the toddler
2. When a toddler asks “Whose is it?” referring to a toy, you say “Mine!” and take the toy
3. When the toddler asks where an item is, you tell the toddler the location of the item and assist/prompt to make sure they can obtain the item from the location quickly
4. When a toddler asks, “What’s that?” about an item on the table, you praise the question and provide an M&M and then say, “You know what that is! What is it?”

Choose one of the following:

• flashcards with all the different combinations of colors, shapes, and sizes
• a puzzle that has one blue square, one yellow triangle, and one red circle
• a puzzle with one blue square, one red square, one blue circle, and one red circle
• any of the above