The purpose of this study was to examine the emergence of convergent intraverbals through prerequisite skills training identified by Sundberg and Sundberg (2011) and assessed by DeSouza and colleagues (2019). Further, the study explored the emergence of convergent intraverbals amongst individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through several variations of prerequisite skills training and to determine if fewer than all four prerequisite skills could facilitate the emergence of convergent intraverbals. Two children, ages 13 to 15 years old, participated in the study, which took place at a university-based school psychology services clinic in the Southeastern United States. Results suggest the sequence of prerequisite skills training identified by previous literature can facilitate the emergence of convergent intraverbals in individuals diagnosed with ASD. However, based on the results of the study, there is little evidence to support the notion that training these prerequisite skills in a varying sequence can facilitate the emergence of convergent intraverbals. Overall, the findings of this study revealed several implications about facilitating the emergence of convergent intraverbals with individuals with ASD. Limitations to this study as well as recommendations for future research in this area are discussed.

Parents of children with an autism spectrum disorder experience many stressors in their lives, including managing problem behaviors of their child. Parent training can effectively teach parents strategies to manage noncompliant behaviors; however, many parents spend months on wait lists before accessing this service. This study investigated the preliminary effects of both an expert-led and parent-led training for wait-listed parents. Thirteen parents of children currently on a waitlist to receive behavioral analytic services participated; most were highly educated, all were white and married. The study used a pyramidal training approach: a professional instructed one group of participants while a participant volunteer instructed the second group. Participants completed a training on several behavior management techniques. Training was conducted in a manner plausible for community clinics to implement. Checklists and direct observations of trainee behavior were taken to observe fidelity of training. Data were also collected using parent self-report measures using Likert-scales to report on their own behavior as well as their child’s behavior. Participants from both groups reported decreases in child noncompliant behavior and increases in parent self-efficacy, confidence and consistency in administering behavior management techniques, indicating that both expert-led and parent-led training are effective in decreasing reported noncompliant behavior and increasing parent-reported self-efficacy. Clinics and communities should seek to implement similar programs to address wait-list issues; using a pyramidal parent training module may allow more parents to access information in a more efficient fashion. Further research should be conducted on larger groups and additional levels of pyramidal training.

No description available.

The identification of preferred and reinforcing stimuli has long been a focus of behavior analysts in applied settings. Research has primarily focused on different methodologies for assessing whether stimuli are preferred and there has been additional research on identifying under what conditions those stimuli will function as reinforcers. Recently, research has begun to examine responses and reinforcers from a behavioral economic perspective. The present study compared responding in a situation where the price of one item was increased, but the price of alternative items remained the same, to a situation where the price of all available items increased. Multiple stimulus with replacement (MS) preference assessment methodology was used and price was altered by increasing the distance of the stimuli from the participant. During the first assessment, the item chosen most frequently in the first session was systematically moved 6 - 24 inches beyond the other items during subsequent sessions. During the second assessment, all items were systematically moved 6 - 24 inches beyond the starting point in front of the participant during subsequent sessions. Results for the first assessment indicated that for four of the five participants, consumption of the target item decreased as a function of increased price for that item. Results for the second assessment indicated that at high costs, clear preference for one item was observed for three of the five participants. Taken collectively, these results suggest that response effort is a variable that should be taken into consideration when evaluating effective treatments for individuals with disabilities. Preference and reinforcer effectiveness may shift as individuals are presented with tasks that require increased response effort in terms of reaching or moving about their environment. / Educational Psychology

In this study, 2-minute and 5-minute free operant preference assessments were conducted. Preference hierarchies and the order of item selection were both identified and compared. The preference assessments were administered in alternating order and the resulting differentially preferred items were utilized in subsequent reinforcer assessments to determine if the items selected were reinforcing. The reinforcer assessments were conducted using an initial baseline and an alternating treatment design. Social validity was assessed with both the families and the participants. Treatment fidelity and inter-observer agreement data were also collected. The 2-minute free operant preference assessment was shown to be effective at identifying effective reinforcers for two out of the three participants. The third participant did not respond consistently to the free operant preference assessment at any length and responded aversively to the presentation of the free operant preference assessment, one which is known for yielding few problem behaviors. For the two participants that responded to the preference assessment, items that were identified functioned effectively as reinforcers. There was also a strong correlation using the Spearman’s Rank-Order Correlation Coefficient between the preference hierarchies and the order of selection list. This study supports the usage of the shortened free operant preference assessment but requires expansion and repetition. The author discussed the limitations of the current study and directions for future research. / Applied Behavioral Analysis

Research has found that children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show significant deficits in receptive language skills (Wiesmer, Lord, & Esler, 2010). One of the primary goals of applied behavior analytic intervention is to improve the communication skills of children with autism by teaching receptive discriminations. Both receptive discriminations and receptive language entail matching spoken words with corresponding objects, symbols (e.g., pictures or words), actions, people, and so on (Green, 2001). In order to develop receptive language skills, children with autism often undergo discrimination training within the context of discrete trial training. This training entails teaching the learner how to respond differentially to different stimuli (Green, 2001). It is through discrimination training that individuals with autism learn and develop language (Lovaas, 2003). The present study compares three procedures for teaching receptive discriminations: (1) simple/conditional (Procedure A), (2) conditional only (Procedure B), and (3) conditional discrimination of two target cards (Procedure C). Six children, ranging in age from 2-years-old to 5-years-old, with an autism diagnosis were taught how to receptively discriminate nine sets of stimuli. Results suggest that the extra training steps included in the simple/conditional and conditional only procedures may not be necessary to teach children with autism how to receptively discriminate. For all participants, Procedure C appeared to be the most efficient and effective procedure for teaching young children with autism receptive discriminations. Response maintenance and generalization probes conducted one-month following the end of training indicate that even though Procedure C resulted in less training sessions overall, no one procedure resulted in better maintenance and generalization than the others. In other words, more training sessions, as evident with the simple/conditional and conditional only procedures, did not facilitate participants’ ability to accurately respond or generalize one-month following training. The present study contributes to the literature on what is the most efficient and effective way to teach receptive discrimination during discrete trial training to children with ASD. These findings are critical as research shows that receptive language skills are predictive of better outcomes and adaptive behaviors in the future.

Functional analyses (FAs) are an important component of treatment and the data gathered from FAs are often graphed in an aggregate or summary format, such as mean rate per session. Given the prevalence of undifferentiated analyses, it may be that this common method of data depiction is incomplete. In this paper, we compare the traditional aggregate method to a comprehensive second-by-second demonstration of the data including all appropriate and inappropriate responses emitted, as well as programmed and accidental antecedent and consequent variables, which may help further clarify the results of a functional analysis. We compared the functional analysis results of two participants when the data were depicted using the traditional rate aggregate method and depicted using a comprehensive second-by-second method. Although both rate and comprehensive second-by-second data depiction resulted in similar conclusions regarding the maintaining variables for the participants, comprehensive second-by-second data depiction allowed us to draw the conclusions in less time. Additional advantages and disadvantages of each method as it relates to efficiency, therapeutic risk and safety, and practicality are also discussed. Keywords: efficiency, functional analysis, problem behavior, safety, within-session second-by-second analysis.

A critical first step in addressing problem behavior is to identify the function of the problem, or reason for engaging in the problem behavior, using systematic assessment procedures known as a functional analysis (FA). The literature consistently demonstrates the effectiveness of FAs, and variations of FAs (e.g., trial-based functional analysis [TBFA]) for assessing a variety of topographies of problem behaviors across populations, age groups, and settings; however, the use of TBFAs for assessing the function of inappropriate mealtime behavior (IMB) has been documented in the literature only once. The purpose of the current study was to contribute to the research examining the efficacy of using TBFAs to identify functions of IMB. Results from the current study are mixed. TBFAs lead to the identification of functions of IMB for 1 out of 3 participants. When comparing TBFA results to traditional FA results, partial correspondence was observed for one participant, and no correspondence was observed for the other two participants. Future research should continue to evaluate the efficacy of TBFAs for IMB as well as evaluate the validity of TBFAs for IMB when results yield evidence of functional relationships.

The autism treatment status quo was reviewed and accompanied by a narrative contextualizing past and present progress with my younger brother Jim’s journey with the condition, sharing proposed next steps for bettering the current state of affairs in the space. The impetus for this piece was to share in the lessons of Jim’s life thus far and the revelations of those who have supported him, as well as to determine ways to create more impactful, lasting change in the limited window of early intervention therapy whilst empowering individuals on the spectrum to optimize for their skills and talents rather than just simply mitigating the downsides of autism spectrum disorder. Feedback as to how to improve the prevailing course of treatment: (education and therapy) was solicited by leading experts in the fields of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), Electroencephalography (EEG), and autism more generally in the context of politics, insurability, and savant syndrome and splinter skills. The advice of the various vertical experts were synthesized and distilled into a new proposed course of treatment which were submitted to all respective experts for further feedback and review prior to publication. It was discovered that there is significant feedback to suggest that the prevailing wisdom that splinter skills and savant syndrome are found in a small minority of individuals with autism spectrum disorder may not be true and that further research is warranted that would implement the new proposed course of treatment and attempt to unlock the talents and gifts of these individuals consistent with the success we encountered raising Jim. While our methods were resource-intensive and conducted manually with many hours of intensive in-home therapy, there is significant feedback to suggest that a technology-driven approach to reforming autism treatment would achieve same or greater results with far fewer resources in the near and long term. By unlocking the greatest minds of our society (the majority of savants have historically been autistic) to take on the greatest challenges of our time, we can rapidly accelerate the progress of humanity and exponentially better the trajectory of society’s future at the global scale.

Experimental aesthetics research has been conducted since the nineteenth century. Interestingly, however, few studies have examined the perceived beauty of naturally shaped objects. In the current experiment, 204 participants were presented with a set of ten snowflake silhouettes that varied in complexity (perimeter relative to area); they were similarly presented with ten randomly-shaped, computer-generated, solid objects that also varied in complexity. For each stimulus set, the participants selected the single snowflake or object that was the most beautiful (Fechner’s method of choice). The results for the solid objects replicated the findings of earlier research: the most and least complex objects were chosen as the most beautiful. Moderately complex objects were rarely selected. The results for the snowflakes were different. For these visual stimuli, the least complex snowflakes were almost never chosen; only the complex snowflakes were perceived to be most beautiful, with the aesthetic preference increasing with increases in complexity.