Video Self-Modeling: Another Useful Strategy for Helping Children with Autism?

In the book Seeing Is Believing: Video Self-Modeling for People With Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, Tom Buggey describes video self-modeling (VSM) as a tool for modifying behavior by having children watch themselves enact a behavior correctly and/or at a slightly more advanced level. Video clips used for this intervention are drawn either from role plays or through a process of editing video to target positive behaviors captured during natural observation. The theoretical underpinning of VSM draws heavily from Bandura's social learning theory.

Reviewers Jeanne M. Slattery and MollyJill Smrekar raise concerns about VSM's limited evidence-base, use of single-subject designs, and the author's request for users of VSM to submit their own research to his website. They surmise that research findings submitted to the website "will be overrepresented by positive outcomes and, if he uses them as testimonials … he is likely to add to the hype to which parents of children with autistic spectrum disorders are exposed."

How valid is this concern? What are the benefits and/or drawbacks of having VSM users submit their findings to the author's website?

Read the Review

Hype or Interesting Lead? Video Self-Modeling for People With Autism
By Jeanne M. Slattery [and] MollyJill Smrekar
      PsycCRITIQUES, 2009 Vol 54(33)