6 I. An Introduction to Project ImPACT empirical foundations.

We first discuss the core social

communication skills addressed by the program and the importance of teaching them to
children with social communication challenges. We then highlight the specific evidence-based
intervention strategies that parents are taught to use with their children. Next, we discuss the
strategies that coaches use to teach parents. We then discuss the key aspects of this program
that can support its use in a variety of community settings. This includes the option of
providing coaching in either an individual or group model, and we provide more detailed
descriptions of these models. We end with a brief summary of the research supporting the
effectiveness of Project ImPACT to date. Table I.1.2 lists the key components of Project
ImPACT. Core Social Communication Skills A number of early social communication skills are
foundational to the development of complex social, language, and cognitive skills in typically
developing children. These skills include joint attention and engagement (Bates, Benigni,
Bretherton, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1979), gesture use (Özçalskan & Goldin-Meadow, 2005),
imitation (Uzgiris, 1981), and symbolic play (Shore, O’Connell, & Bates, 1984). These skills are
significantly delayed in children with ASD and related social communication challenges,
leading to significant impairments in social-cognitive development (Ingersoll, 2011). Research
indicates that all children, regardless of their ability, learn social communication skills in a
similar developmental sequence (Gerber, 2003). Indeed, children with social communication
delays are able to learn skills that are appropriate for their developmental level more quickly
than skills that are above their developmental level (Lifter, Sulzer-Azaroff, Anderson, &
Cowdery, 1993). Furthermore, teaching early social communication skills can lead to increased
development of more complex communication skills in children with ASD and related
disorders (Ingersoll & Schreibman, 2006; Kasari, Gulsrud, Freeman, Paparella, & Hellemann,
2012; Kasari, Paparella, Freeman, & Jahromi, 2008; Whalen, Schreibman, & Ingersoll, 2006).
Based on this research, Project ImPACT targets four core sets of social communication skills
within a developmental framework: social engagement, communication, imitation, and play.
Below, we describe these skills and their developmental significance. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
Social engagement involves the ability to maintain interactions by responding to and initiating
social bids with others. Children with social communication delays usually have significant
difficulty maintaining interactions with others (Schreibman, 1988). A key aspect of social
engagement is the use of joint attention. Joint attention is the ability to coordinate attention
between an object and another person for social purposes and includes showing, sharing, and
pointing. Joint attention is a particularly important skill because it is believed to be involved in
the development of language skills (Bates et al., 1979). Children with social communication
challenges have difficulty both initiating and responding to joint attention bids from others,
and it is thought that these deficits may lead to impaired language learning (Loveland &
Landry, 1986). The starting point of this program is to teach the parent to increase her child’s
social engagement, as it underlies all other social communication skills. Furthermore, all
children are more likely to learn when they are actively engaged. In addition, increasing joint
attention and engageTHE PROJECT ImPACT GUIDE

Ingersoll, Brooke. Teaching Social Communication to Children with Autism and Other
Developmental Delays (2-book set), Second Edition (p. 25). Guilford Publications. Edición de
Kindle.