The Effects of Model’s Skill Level on Learning a Basketball Skill in Children with Autism

چکیده

One of the disabilities that has rarely been studied in the field of observational learning is autism. the purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of watching a video model with different skill levels on learning a basketball skill in adolescents with autism. The current study is descriptive and causal-comparative. The subjects of this study consisted of 60 adolescents with autism with an age range of 13 to 18 years, and they were randomly and equally divided into three groups: skilled model, novice model, and control. The motor task involved a basketball throwing, in which the accuracy score was measured as the dependent variable. The subjects performed the pre-test (including ten throws), the acquisition stage (including 5 10-throws training blocks), and the retention test (including ten throws). Subjects in the observation groups watched their respective models for five times before each training block. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the throwing accuracy. The results showed that novice video group had significantly better throwing scores than skilled video model and control groups in the acquisition phase and retention test. In addition, skilled group had significantly better throwing scores than control group in the acquisition phase and retention test. The results of this study show that people with autism benefit from watching a video model to learn a basketball throwing skill. This result may indicate that these people have the necessary mechanisms to learn new skills through video observation.