The first purpose of this study is to show that an infant diagnosed as autism acquires some words through the application of operant conditioning procedures. The second is to indicate that words of praise and recognition or physical contact stimuli function as secondary reinforcers. The third is to examine whether he verbalizes words coincident with each task in the free operant situation. The case was a six years and four months old boy who didn't show any interpersonal behaviors, any plays with toy, but a few verbalization. The results were as follows: I) He learned to verbalize the behavior when he wished to be hugged. II) The words of praise and recognition didn't turn to be secondary reinforcers, but physical contact stimuli such as body hug and head stroke showed the reinforcers. III) He didn't verbalize words coincident with each task, but showed more frequent words in the motor task than in the stationary task. The reinforcer will be discussed in the operant conditioning procedure of autistic children hencefoward.

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We have been treating a child of four years and eight months old therapeutically. At the outset of the treatment, he could not understand any speech at all, nor did he have any other means of communication such as gesture. During the training process, the child made steady progress in visual, but little progress in auditory tasks. Accordingly, we ventured to teach him first regular letters and then finger letters before teaching him how to speak. By the age of seven years and two months, the child learned to recognize the written forms of many of the words on our picture cards and spell five of them with finger letters. Moreover, he acquired the ability to understand four picture cards by hearing alone and direct his attention to his mother speaking to him. From these details of the training process, we have come to the following conclusions: 1. When auditory and visual stimuli are presented simultaneously, the former interferes with the latter. 2. By acquiring an appropriate means of communication, the child shows increased improvement in his learning behaviour. 3. It may be that the acquisition of visual symbols prompts that of auditory ones, but further study must be made before we can provide a definite answer. 4. The autistic symptoms do not show any remarkable improvement. Therefore we conclude that these symptoms do not come from the inability to understand auditory stimuli and that the child in question is to be diagnosed as a developmental sensory aphasic with autistic syndrome.

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The purrose of this study is to shape the group activity through the behavior therapeutic trainings. The trainings would be designed to make up interaction with autistics and to make understanding of rules in playing under the group setting. The group was constructed with six preschool children who had been treated in the clinic under the individual setting behavioristically. Although they had modified in learning attitude, problem solving, and communicating to some extent, they did still remain other problems such as inability of playing with others. Three of six were diagnosed as autistic children. In the study, three autistics are analysed with the process of behavior modification through the group training. The group trainings were designed as follow; 1). Duration : May, 1977-December, 1977 (19 sessions). 2). Task; Main task-a tug of war, "playing train". sub task-1. action imitation 2. running 3. cirkit 4. rhythmic play 5. free play. 3). Recording: 1. Writing down each child's behavior by two persons. 2. Recording by the tape recorder. The results were as follow; 1). Action imitation The proportion of correct performances in action imitation had increased in all of the three autistics. Especially, Case-T showed a great progress in 7th-13th sessions. 2). A tug of war The levels of achievement were evaluated by the performance level of the rules described below; i) Starting with the sign to begin, ii) Tugging backwards, iii) Tugging up to the endline, iv) Understanding win and lose, v) Cheering adequately. Case-Thad become to be able to understand all rules well, Case-K only the rules i), ii), iii), and Case-Y not at all. 3). "Playing Train" All of the three cases was able to take and play their roles adequately and actively, such as driver and passenger. As a result, the child who comprehended the rules was appeared not only to participate actively in playing of a tug of war, but also to modify his intersonal behaviors. But the children who was unable to comprehend the rules were not appeared to modify their general behaviors. The difference between the former and the latter seemed to be due to the level of achievement of action imitation. It was suggested that the training of imitation would be needed in order to facilitate this kind of activities before. And it should be also considered that the program should be made on the basis of the level of child development. "Playing train" appeared to be a suitable program to learn the rules or roles of play in autistics, but unable to make some modification in their interpersonal behaviors.

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