Table 1.

Studies using VM for the development of personal hygiene skills in children and adolescent with ASD

Author(s)	Targeted skill(s)	Participants	Setting	Study design	Inter Observer Agreement (I.O.A.)	Intervention Dependent variable	Type Model Custom-made/ available video	Outcome
Charlop-Christy, Le & Freeman (2000)	Brushing teeth (among others social skills: conversational speech, expressive labelling of emotions, independent play, spontaneous greetings, oral comprehension, cooperative play, social play)	One boy aged 7 (among other four children)	School	Multiple baseline design within child	I.O.A. = 90–100%	Compare VM (brushing teeth) and in vivo modeling (washing face) giving prompts exclusively for on-task behaviour. Dependent variable: correct performance with the target behaviour.	VM Adult (familiar) Custom-made video	With VM, the participant acquired the skill (brushing teeth) faster and generalised it.
Rayner (2010)	Brushing teeth (among other skill, i.e. unpacking bag)	One boy aged 12	School	Non-concurrent multiple baseline design	I.O.A. = 97%	VM with verbal and signal prompt provided when the child did not start independently. Prompting procedure and live modelling were then used only for teeth brushing. Dependent variable: number of steps correctly performed.	VM Symbols embedded in the video Adult (unfamiliar) Custom-made video	Limited gains with VM for brushing teeth (enhanced from baseline levels to a mean of 55% during the intervention); however, VM led to faster enhancements in the other skill. Generalisation was not assessed for brushing teeth.
Rosenberget al. (2010)	Hand washing	Three children aged 3–5	School	Concurrent multiple baseline across participants design	I.O.A. = 89%−100%.	Commercial VM and then customised VM were used. No prompts occurred. Dependent variable: number of correctly completed steps of the task.	VM Peer (familiar for custom video, unfamiliar for commercial video) Available video Custom-made video	One participant learnt 80% of the steps but two participants did not acquire from the commercial model. Then they received a customised VM, that lead some acquisition for the two participants who did not acquire from the commercial model. Gains were maintained for two participants during follow-up and generalised to a second setting.
Campbell et al. (2015)	Hand washing	Three students aged 17–19*	School	Multiple baseline across participants design	I.O.A. = 100%	VM on a portable handheld device. Basic prompts were used if it was necessary and scored as 0. Dependent variable: number of steps of the task performed independently.	VM n.a n.a	Substantial improvement skill level for two participants and moderate improvement for one participant.
Popple et al. (2016)	Brushing teeth	18 children aged 5–14**	n.a.	Randomized control trial	Not necessary	Randomised control trial – the VM intervention was delivered to the participants via the internet. Participants were assigned to an intervention or control video condition. Dependent variable: a plaque index was used to determine oral hygiene.	VM With narration and closed captioning Peer (unfamiliar) Available video	Oral hygiene enhancements in both groups, with greater improvement within the intervention condition.
Keen et al. (2007)	Toilet use	Five children aged 4–6	Home and educational setting	Multiple baseline design between and across groups	I.O.A. = n.a.	VM and operant conditioning strategies compared with operant conditioning strategies only. Minimum reinforcements were used. Dependent variable: frequencies of in-toilet urinations.	VM Animated video embedded colour, sound and music, accompanied by picture card Available video	Improvement in children who received VM. Three children showed maintenance during follow-up. Two children showed generalisation to a new setting
Drysdale et al. (2015)	Toilet use	Two boys aged 4–5***	Home	Multiple baseline across behaviour design	I.O.A. = 98%; 100%.	VM using both a ‘chaining procedure’ and prompts. Dependent variable: number of prompts required to complete the steps.	VSM/VPOV The video contained both VSM and VPOV elements Real model (self) and animated models Custom-made video	After the intervention, the children required less prompts to perform the toileting steps independently. Children showed maintenance and generalisation to another setting.
Lee et al. (2014)	Toilet train	One boy aged 4***	Home	Changing criterion design	I.O.A. = 100%.	VM intervention with reinforcement and picture prompts. Dependent variable: number of unprompted completion of the steps of the task.	VSM/VPOV The video contained both VSM and VPOV elements Custom-made video	Increase in most of the skills of the entire task, which generalised to a second setting. The child did not learn in-toilet voiding.
McLay et al. (2015)	Toileting skills	Two boys aged 7–8***	Home	Non-concurrent multiple baseline design across participants	I.O.A. = 99%; 93.5%	VM intervention that uses animation for in-toilet voiding associated with reinforcement procedures and prompts. Dependent variable: number of steps independently performed; frequency of urination and defecation.	VSM/VPOV The video contained both VSM and VPOV elements Urination and defecation were animated models Custom-made video	Children increased the percentage of steps independently performed in the toileting chain and successfully did in-toilet voiding Participants showed maintenance and generalisation to a second setting for the steps achieved
Bainbridge & Myles (1999)	Initiate toilet use	One boy aged 3	Home	ABA design	I.O.A. = 100%	The child was exposed to a commercially VM with immediate verbal prompt Dependent variable: frequency in the toilet use initiation and the number of wet and dry diapers.	VM Peer (unfamiliar) Available video	Enhancement in the beginning of the toilet use and dry diapers.

VM, video Modelling; VSM, video self-modelling; VPOV, video modelling point of view; n.a., not available; I.O.A., Inter Observer Agreement (two independent raters scored the study and then an I.O.A. was obtained based on the following formula: 100×agreement/(agreement + disagreement)).

Note: the mental age of the participants was between 2 and 7 years old, *one participant with borderline to normal cognitive range, **unknown mental age, ***unknown mental age, presumably lower mental age.