The purpose of this multiple baseline across participants investigation was to examine the effects of systematically scaffolded narrative-based intervention on the personally generated narratives of preschool-age children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The author sought to determine if story grammar elements (e.g., character, problem, feeling, action, ending) targeted within structured narrative retells would transfer to personally generated stories. Three preschool-aged children with ASD participated in narrative-based language intervention which included structured levels of cueing (e.g., pictures and icons only, verbal only). Measures were taken using a scoring rubric for narrative retells and personally generated narratives. Results yielded significant treatment effects for Participant A on both narrative retell and personally generated story measures. Time constraints limited the number of intervention sessions for the other two participants; however, Participant A did demonstrate an increase in story grammar element inclusion in narrative retells and personally generated stories. Generalization of elements targeted within narrative retells to personally generated stories may support the use of systematically scaffolded narrative intervention to address linguistic targets in a naturalistic context for preschool-aged children with ASD. Future research may address linguistic concepts targeted more effectively within the narrative framework and investigate what types of cueing that are most effective for achieving mastery of treatment targets.
