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Everyone, including children with developmental disabilities, encounters stimuli they find aversive every day (e.g., the sound of a classmate tapping their pencil). These aversive stimuli may not be problematic for typically developing individuals, because they learn to behave in ways that allow them to escape or avoid this aversive stimulation. They could, for example, mand (i.e., request) for something to be changed in the environment (e.g., ask their classmates to stop tapping their pencils). A child with developmental disabilities, however, may not have the communication skills necessary to request the termination of aversive stimuli, which may result in frequent exposure to aversive situations. For these children, it may be useful to acquire a general mand (e.g., saying, "No, thank you") which could be used to avoid or terminate a variety of aversive stimuli. Previous researchers teaching mands for negative reinforcement have focused on replacing problem behavior maintained by escape from task demands. The current study extended the literature on teaching mands for negative reinforcement by teaching children with developmental disabilities to mand for escape from a variety of nonpreferred stimuli, while assessing generalization to untrained stimuli and settings. Participants were two school-aged boys with autism who engaged in problem behavior when they encountered nonpreferred stimuli, and did not use an appropriate mand for negative reinforcement. First, we employed a non-preferred stimulus assessment to identify stimuli for subsequent use in mand training. Next, we conducted mand training sequentially across nonpreferred stimuli until sufficient exemplars were trained for generalization to untrained stimuli to occur. Finally, we conducted probes to assess generalization of the mand response to nontraining contexts outside of the experimental setting. For both participants, training was required across two stimuli before cross-stimulus generalization was observed. Because generalization did not bring the mand to criterion levels with the third stimulus, for either participant, training was introduced to facilitate acquisition. The mand response was acquired with a fourth stimulus in the absence of training. Through the inclusion of appropriate control conditions, we showed that the stimulus control of the mand response was appropriate, occurring almost exclusively in the presence of nonpreferred stimuli. In addition, we showed decreases in problem behavior, for both participants, which corresponded to acquisition of the mand response. We also provided evidence of generalization to nontraining contexts. We discuss limitations of the current study and present suggestions for future research.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Introduction: The prevalence of those aged 3-25 with an intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD), has increased 17.1% from 1997 to 2008. This study focused on these I/DD: autism spectrum disorder (ASD), cerebral palsy, learning disabilities and spina bifida. Previous studies have found that individuals with an I/DD use health services and the emergency department (ED) more frequently, regardless of payer. Methods: This dissertation will describe and define the characteristics of ED use among children and young adults with an I/DD. A repeated, cross-section of annual data of a national sample distributed by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Healthcare Utilization Project National Emergency Department Sample will be analyzed from 2009-2014. This approach will document the primary clinical reason for ED use, the appropriateness of the need for a visit, and demographic, geographic, and temporal correlates for medical, injury, and psychiatric care visits in the ED. The appropriateness of need will be assessed by the New York University (NYU) Emergency Department Diagnosis Classification method for medical care visits. A logistic regression model will be specified for each visit type. Results: The sample included 386,632 visits with an I/DD diagnosis. The NYU classification method found that 44.6% of all visits for ASD were classified as nonemergent yet the other three I/DD had a non-emergent visit rate ranging 25.9%-28.8%. The ASD sub-sample was 51.8% of all visits for psychiatric care and 50.5% of all visits for injury care. All independent variables tested: admission on weekend, ED trauma level, age, sex, payer source, patient zip code income quarterlies, and patient rurality, were found to be statistically different for each model. Conclusion: The findings indicate the need for development of interventions that are specific to reducing non-emergent ED utilization for children and young adults with a diagnosis of ASD and interventions developed for reduction of emergent ED care for the other I/DD’s. In addition, unique interventions are needed to reduce the utilization of the ED for psychiatric care specifically for the ASD population and utilization of the ED for injury care for all I/DD diagnoses. / 2021-05-08

The participant is a 61-year-old woman, diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder and profound intellectual disability who was referred to a behavior-disorders clinic, to increase cooperation with routine dental procedures. I used a behavioral treatment package consisting of stimulus fading, differential reinforcement, and extinction to establish tolerance of, and cooperation with, routine dental procedures. Results showed that cooperative responding varied throughout the progression of teaching the prerequisite steps (sitting in a chair, sitting in a variety of chairs, then working on sitting in the dental chair). However, by the end of the study, the participant engaged in the behavior of open mouth for 30 s and tolerated/cooperated with the experimenter using a plastic visual inspection tool for 30 s. Further research should evaluate the effectiveness of a similar treatment package to develop a more streamlined and systematic framework to improve compliance and tolerance.

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Research indicates children with disabilities benefit from therapeutic horseback riding (TR). This study examined the impact TR had on attention behaviors of five children with various developmental disabilities in a preschool classroom. Children were observed in the classroom setting twice weekly for 10 weeks on a day they participated in TR services and on a day they did not participate in TR. Single case experiments suggested there was not a significant difference in all but one child’s sustained attention in the classroom on days children received TR services. An independent samples t-test suggested there was no significant difference in scores between riding day (M<./I> = 1.78, SD =.247) and non-riding days (M = 1.76, SD = .262); t(87) = -.481, p = .632 for the group as a whole. Further research should be conducted to determine TR’s effect on behaviors in the classroom.

This research study examined the relationship between family cohesion and depression in mothers and fathers of children with disabilities. One hundred and six two-parent families who had a child with a disability provided information on their feelings of cohesion through Bloom's cohesion subscale and depression through the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D). Analyses indicated that mothers and fathers of this sample are not significantly more depressed than the general population. However, there was a correlation between mothers' and fathers' depression, indicating that when mothers' depression increased, fathers' depression increased. Negative correlations were found between mothers' and fathers' self-reported levels of cohesion and depression indicating that when there were high levels of depression there were low levels of cohesion. Limitations, implications, and further research ideas are presented.

The current study examined the effects of video self-modeling (VSM) via an iPad on the mathematics performance of students with developmental disabilities. The learning task was presented from the consumers' point of view; students learned to estimate the amount of money they should use to pay for a given item and the amount they should receive back to help ensure that they are treated honestly by merchants. Through VSM, video clips showing the step-by-step problem solving process were synchronized onto an iPad. Students were shown how to use the iPad and access the video clips in order to watch themselves successfully solving the story problems. Experimental effects were evaluated within a multiple baseline design. Results indicated a functional relationship between math performance and VSM via an iPad and extended previous research by demonstrating the successful acquisition of functional math skills by students with developmental disabilities. Intervention effects were maintained for three weeks following the removal of the intervention. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Despite the emphasis society places on literacy, most students with developmental disabilities remain illiterate. One cause for this illiteracy may be that these students lack foundational language skills that contribute to being able to read. Research has shown that, among other contributions, multiple exposures across time increase students' abilities to acquire knowledge. The Symple Readers integrated curriculum plans for multiple exposures to novel picture vocabulary words by building them into all activities across the students' day and week. The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of the Symple Readers integrated curriculum on expressive vocabulary development. During the six-week study, eight elementary students with developmental disabilities were given the opportunity to acquire 27 novel expressive vocabulary words. A multiple probe design across word sets was used to determine the effects of instruction on word acquisition. While individual results varied, the average expressive vocabulary gain was 72% of the novel words, showing a clear functional relationship between the Symple Readers integrated curriculum and the acquisition of the 27 novel expressive vocabulary words.

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