Classroom Pivotal Response Teaching for Children with Autism

Book excerpt: "Classroom Pivotal Response Teaching, or CPRT, was developed to help meet the educational needs of young children with autism. CPRT (originally called Pivotal Response Training or Treatment) is a form of naturalistic behavioral intervention, based on theprinciples of applied behavior analysis (ABA), and is soundly supported in the scientific literature. This manual will describe the components of CPRT and how to implement the approach in your classroom. Although this manual is geared primarily toward preschool through grade 3 teachers, CPRT strategies can be used by a variety of professionals. Speech and language pathologists, occupational therapists, behavior specialists, psychologists and other teaching professionals may all find CPRT a valuable strategy. Additionally, the techniques in this manual may be useful with typically developing children and those with a variety of special needs. Most children can benefit from this structured, systematic approach that utilizes naturally occurring teaching opportunities. One of the strengths of this approach is that it is adaptable to a wide range of teaching goals and service settings. All who teach are encouraged to integrate CPRT into their existing strategies as often as possible"--Provided by publisher.