The purpose of this experiment was to initiate research into the use of operant conditioning of autonomically mediated behavior (OCAM) in the modification of maladaptive behavior. Anxiety was chosen as a target behavior because of its apparent pervasiveness among many different maladaptive behaviors.

This study compared the effectiveness of a social story intervention with a social story plus behavior skills training intervention involving family members for a child with autism. A multiple baseline across siblings design was used to assess the impact of the intervention on social interaction of the child with autism, as well as the social interaction of the child's siblings. The siblings implemented both phases of the intervention. Social validity measures were taken from the siblings and parents, treatment integrity and generalization were assessed as well. The results indicated that the social interactions of the child with autism and the siblings increased initially, but did not continue to increase when the social story intervention was implemented by the siblings. The addition of BST did not result in any additional improvement. On the other hand, two of the siblings' social interactions increased over time when engaged in the behavior skills training intervention, which resulted in an increase in the social interactions of the child with autism during play with them. The results also indicated that the sibling mediated intervention failed to generalize to a non-trained free play condition in the pool.

No description available.

This study investigated the relationship between maladaptive behavior, defined as referral to counseling, and the Adlerian construct of birth order. The birth order variables examined were ordinal position, sex of subject, family density, family size, socio-economic status, intactness of family, age of mother, and sex of sibling. The subjects in this study were 217 school-aged children with academic and/or behavior problems who were referred to an interdisciplinary guidance center. The subjects were assigned to counseling or no-counseling groups on the basis of an interdisciplinary evaluation and staffing, which included an extensive battery of academic and psychological tests.

This study investigated the relationship between parent implemented interventions for Autism and ratings of maladaptive behavior over a 6 month period of time. Participants were children between the ages of two and six years diagnosed with Autism and their primary care providers. Repeated measures ANOVAs and visual analysis of graphically represented mean scores were used to examine the differences between the parent reported ratings of maladaptive behaviors across two treatment groups consisting of an ABA/Verbal Behavior (ABA/VB) intervention model, a Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) model, and a control or treatment as usual (TAU) group across a 6 month enrollment period. Results indicated a lack of statistically significant findings however substantial effect sizes and changes in mean scoring indicating meaningful differences across groups and over assessment periods was found. Overall, treatment groups were found to have greater reductions in maladaptive behaviors versus the treatment as usual group. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. / School Psychology

Un nombre croissant d’études indique que les interventions musicales (IMs) ont des effets bénéfiques sur les enfants et adolescents atteints d’un trouble du spectre de l’autisme (TSA). À ce jour, aucune revue systématique utilisant une approche méta-analytique n’a investigué l’efficacité des IMs sur trois des symptômes prédominants du TSA, soit le fonctionnement social, les comportements mal-adaptés et le langage. Dans ce mémoire, tous les 17 articles scientifiques comparant les IMs à des interventions non-musicales (INMs) ont été décrits systématiquement et évalués selon les lignes directrices de CONSORT. Onze études répondaient aux critères d’inclusion des présentes méta-analyses, chacune rapportant des mesures d’évaluations longitudinales ou d’évaluations pendant les sessions. Les résultats des méta-analyses ont démontré un bénéfice des IMs chez le TSA, particulièrement pour les mesures des comportements sociaux mal-adaptés. Une comparaison entre les IMs et les INMs indiquait un avantage pour les IMs comparément aux INMs en ce qui concerne les comportements sociaux, mais aucun avantage pour les comportements mal-adaptés non-sociaux et le langage. La revue systématique a révélé des lacunes méthodologiques des études évaluées, telles que des tailles d’échantillons restreintes, des durées et intensités d’interventions limitées, un manque d’information à propos des échantillons et des critères d’appariement, puis le biais d’attrition. La combinaison de cette revue systématique et des méta-analyses a permis une mise à jour de l’évaluation des preuves de l’efficacité des IMs pour les jeunes ayant un TSA, ainsi que de donner des recommandations aux chercheurs et cliniciens afin d’améliorer la pratique dans ce domaine. / There is considerable interest in using music interventions (MIs) to address core impairments present in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). An increasing number of studies suggest that MIs have positive outcomes in this population, but no systematic review employing meta-analysis to date has investigated the efficacy of MIs across three of the predominant symptoms in ASD, specifically social functioning, maladaptive behaviors and language impairments. In this thesis, all available peer-reviewed studies (n = 17) comparing active MIs to non-music interventions (NMIs) were systematically summarized and evaluated using quality assessment based on the CONSORT statement. Eleven studies fulfilled inclusion criteria for meta-analysis, which differentiated between within-session and longitudinal outcomes. The quantitative analyses results supported the effectiveness of MI in ASD, and particularly for measures sensitive to social maladaptive behaviors. Comparing between MI and NMI, the results were generally suggestive of benefits of MI over NMI for social outcomes, but did not find benefits for non-social maladaptive behaviors or language outcomes. The systematic review revealed important methodological issues present in these studies, such as small sample sizes, restricted durations and intensities of interventions, missing sample information and matching criteria, and attrition bias. Together, the combined systematic review and meta-analyses provided an up-to-date evaluation of the evidence for MI’s benefits in ASD children and provide key recommendations for future clinical interventions and research about best practice in the domain.