Syftet med den här studien är att synliggöra hur BTI-metoden används i förskolans och förskoleklassens pedagogiska verksamhet och sätta det i relation till förskolans och förskoleklassens läroplan och gällande skollag. Syftet är också att få en förståelse för hur en pedagogisk interventionsteknisk metod riktad mot en individ, kan påverka förskolans och förskoleklassens pedagogiska verksamhet. Vi har tittat på tidigare studier som gjorts kring användandet av BTI men det finns väldigt lite forskning på det här området. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna består av Skinners teori operant betingning som kommer från behaviorismen och den sätter vi i relation till ett sociokulturellt perspektiv och ett hälsoperspektiv. I analysen problematiserar vi kring de konsekvenser en pedagogisk interventionsteknisk metod kan få för förskolans och förskoleklassens verksamhet med hjälp av dessa teorier och vår empiri. Studien är av kvalitativ art med en hermeneutisk ansats och kvalitativa intervjuer har valts som forskningsmetod. Vi intervjuade 1 kommunal samordnare, 1 grundskollärare och 6 förskollärare. Resultatet visar på att det finns både inre och yttre faktorer som påverkar hur användandet av BTI ser ut i den ordinarie verksamheten. Både hinder och möjligheter för att involvera BTI kopplat till uppdraget och med avseende på alla barn har identifierats på både individ-, grupp- och organisationsnivå. Intervjuerna gjordes på gruppnivå och organisationsnivå men analyserades utifrån samtliga nivåer d.v.s. individ-, grupp- och organisation.

Background: The diagnostic and clinical differentiation between children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) and children with pragmatic language impairments (PLI), two populations that share a similar linguistic profile, was examined in school-aged children. Charting the behavioral and cognitive profiles of these populations can serve to aide diagnostic differentiation and educational intervention. Objectives: The objectives of this study were two-fold. One, to compare scores on diagnostic measures of autism between school-age children with ASD and those with PLI Two, to investigate differences between children in these groups and typically developing children in the areas of social cognition and executive function (EF). Methods: The participants included 22 school-age children diagnosed with ASD (mean age = 10.2; 18%female), 19 children with PLI (mean age = 9.6; 11% female) and 35 typically developing (I'D) comparisons (mean age =10.5, 23% female) matched on non-verbal IQ and language age. All of the participants had fluent language and an IQ above 80. In study 1, the participants with ASD and PLI were tested on the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) and the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ). In study 2, the participants in all three groups were tested on the measures of three hierarchical levels of Theory of Mind (ToM), a planning measure, and a response inhibition measure. Results: There was a significant difference between diagnostic groups in the level of the severity of behaviors represented by the Communication and Reciprocal Social Interaction subdomains on both diagnostic measures. However, in the sub domain of Repetitive and Rigid Behaviors, the difference between groups was subtler and not useful as a differentiating factor. While both the children with ASD and those with PLI violated more rules on the 'planning in problem solving' task than the typically developing group, only the children in the ASD group demonstrated impaired functioning on the planning measure. Performance on the inhibition task was significantly impaired in both atypical groups compared to the typically developing group. The findings of the study suggest that children with PLI may be more vulnerable than children with ASD to developmental lags in understanding false belief but less vulnerable in planning and monitoring behavior. Conclusions: The diagnostic differentiation between ASD and PLI is complex, especially in school-age populations. Behavior symptoms may be more subdued in school-age children and thus should not be used as a tool for diagnostic differentiation. Social communication delays are generally more severe in children with ASD, with some children with PLI presenting with comparable levels of severity. Educational planning for these two populations must be informed by both group similarities (e.g., difficulty forming theories about the false beliefs and desires of others in order to predict future behavior) and group differences (e.g., planning in problem solving) in cognitive and social development. Thus, the development of individual education plans should be created within the general framework of known areas of strengths and weaknesses related to diagnostic categorization and then further tailored to childrens' personal profiles based on an assessment of skills.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have deficits in communication and delays in language development, but there have been few studies of their vocabulary. This study compared longitudinal parent report data from the MCDI collected for 49 children with ASD over three years with data from the MCDI norms. It focused on three aspects of lexical development: (1) change in lexical composition as evident in percentage of predicates/nominals; (2) order of emergence for predicate types and (3) predictive value of lexical variables for later grammatical development. ASD Groups were matched to typically developing group norms on total MCDI scores for each comparison. Subsequent analysis indicated: (1) no differences in the percentages of predicates/nominals for the two groups at 3 time points; and, (2) virtually identical orders of emergence for different predicate types with the exception of three meaning type categories—quantitative predicates, cognitive/affective predicates and predicates involving causal acts to change experiential states. Cognitive/affective predicates were found to come in somewhat later in ASD groups while quantitative predicates and predicates involving changes in experiential states came in earlier in ASD groups. This study also found (3) that lexical variables, especially number of predicates, strongly predicted grammatical complexity one year later, a process common in typical language development. The study concludes that lexical development in ASD follows the normal course, albeit later and more slowly. It also suggests that communication deficits in this population are rooted in challenges with social acts rather than from an inability to match meanings to words.

The purpose of the project was to develop a comprehensive strategic plan for addressing the problem of autism in Atlanta and the State of Georgia. The project was carried out under the Supervision of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta personnel, specifically Lydia Gonzalez-Ryan. The protocol included using population data, historic utilization data, autism prevalence rates, benchmarking data on other autism centers and efforts ongoing in other states. This data was not statistically analyzed but was collected and summarized qualitatively and was, and will continue to be used to inform the strategic recommendations going forward. This project involved no human subjects and did not require any IRB intervention at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta as it was an operationally focused project.

The current studies addressed two questions regarding early social behaviour in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) that have not yet been directly explored. In Study 1 we examined the hypothesis that impaired imitation in this group may reflect a diminished social motivation to engage, rather than a core deficit in imitation. Young children with and without ASD engaged in imitation tasks during which controlled manipulations of reward (social and non-social) were administered for target behaviours. Children with ASD displayed increased levels of imitation with the incentive of an external reward in comparison to when this reward was absent. There was no differential impact of social versus non-social rewards. Typically developing (TD) children performed similarly, irrespective of whether or not reward was administered. We suggest that young children with ASD may be capable of imitating when appropriate incentives are present. Study 2 explored the breadth of social challenges faced in young children with ASD by examining a later-developing domain of social functioning that may be compromised by early social difficulties. We explored the tendency of children with ASD to engage in helping, sharing, and comforting behaviour in situations where the need for the prosocial behaviour was displayed and in perceptually similar situations where the need was absent. Children with ASD displayed low levels of helping and sharing, but provided comfort at levels consistent with TD children. For both comforting and sharing, children with ASD successfully discerned situations where a need was present from when it was not and adjusted their behaviour accordingly. We suggest that children with ASD may require different ‘conditions’ to engage in social behaviours at the same level as their TD peers and suggest future research to this end. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-27 22:10:12.095

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Vårt syfte med studien var att undersöka pedagoger och specialpedagogers syn på betydelsen av användandet av alternativa och kompletterande hjälpmedel (AKK) för barn med diagnosen autism på förskolan. Frågeställningarna för studien var att undersöka vilka uppfattningar pedagoger och specialpedagoger har om kommunikationens betydelse för barn med autism i förskolan och vilka uppfattningar som pedagoger och specialpedagoger har om AKK:s betydelse för barn med autism i förskolan rörande deras lärande och utveckling samt vilka skillnader det fanns mellan pedagogernas och specialpedagogernas syn på AKK:s betydelse för barn med autism i förskola? Vi valde att använda oss av intervju som metod eftersom vi var intresserade av respondenternas egna tankar och ansåg att vi genom en intervju hade möjlighet att ställa följdfrågor för att fördjupa deras resonemang om ämnet. Vi delade upp arbetet i två delstudier där den ena av oss ansvarade för datainsamling och databearbetning från pedagogerna (delstudie 1) och den andre av oss ansvarade för det samma arbetet för specialpedagogerna (delstudie 2). Vid datainsamlingen använde vi oss av diktafoner för att spela in samtalen, på så sätt hade vi fullt fokus på respondenten under intervjuns gång. Efter intervjuerna har samtalen lyssnats av, transkriberats och förts in i dokument i datorn, för en bättre överblick. Materialet från intervjuerna behandlas i studiens resultat och analysdel utifrån frågeställningarna och studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt som är fenomenografi. Utifrån resultatet av den insamladen empirin från de båda delstudierna visar det sig att samtliga respondenter anser att alla barn måste få möjligheter till att kommunicera och att det är av stor betydelse för barnen med autism att ha en fungerande kommunikation för att utvecklas. Vad gäller AKK:s betydelse anser samtliga respondenter att det har stor betydelse för barnen med autism både i det vardagliga arbetet på förskolan samt ur ett lärande- och utvecklingsperspektiv. Studien visar att det finns skillnader i graden av kunskap om AKK för barn med autism bland respondenterna.

A forced choice reaction time (RT) task was used to examine the relations between covert orienting (shifts in attention independent of eye movement) and filtering (the inhibition of processing of irrelevant stimuli) components of attention in persons with autism (n = 12) and developmentally disabled persons without autism (n = 20). Conditions varied with regard to the validity of the cue (related to covert orienting) and presence of distractors (related to filtering). ?'he RT/p(correct) scores of both groups were longer in the distractor-present conditions and in conditions when a cue provided incorrect information regarding the location of the subsequent target (invalid cue). The RT/p(correct) scores of persons with autism as compared to developmentally disabled persons without autism were slower overall. However the pattern of performance of persons with autism was not significantly different from that of the developmentally disabled persons without autism. These results are inconsistent with the notions of specific deficits in covert orienting and filtering among persons with autism and indicate that certain attentional difficulties may not be unique to autism. Alternatively, they may also reflect differences in the specific mechanisms assessed in different studies. Findings are discussed in terms of the specificity of visual filtering and covert orienting impairments in autism.

In general terms a mand is a requesting response. Typically, children learn basic mands (e.g., “I want drink”) before learning to mand for information. Across three experiments I taught children with autism to mand for information using the mands “What is it?,” “Where?,” and/or “Which?”. In Experiment 1, a modified multiple-baseline design across situations was used to evaluate a teaching procedure that consisted of contrived motivating operations, prompt fading and prompt delay, natural consequences, error correction, and a brief preference assessment for teaching “What is it?” The results demonstrated strong internal validity with each of the three participants, with each showing generalization to situations, activities, scripts, the natural environment, and over time. In Experiment 2, a modified multiple-baseline design across three participants was used to evaluate approximately the same teaching procedure for teaching “Where?” The results demonstrated strong internal validity with each of the three participants, with generalization by all three participants to novel situations, activities, location the natural environment, and over time. In Experiment 3, a modified multiple-baseline design across three participants was used to evaluate approximately the same teaching procedure for teaching “Which?” The results demonstrated strong internal validity with generalization by all three participants to novel situations, activities, scripts, the natural environment, and over time. These findings are discussed in terms of its contributions to applied behaviour analysis research on teaching mand to children with autism.