Perseverative conversation is a problem vocal behavior that is unique to individuals with Asperger's disorder. It is characterized by long-winded monologues revolving around circumscribed interests. The current research literature suggests that perseverative conversation may exacerbate already poor social relations, impede productivity at work and home, and lead to disruptive behavior when it is restricted. Despite the negative repercussions there is a lack of research related to the assessment and treatment of this behavior. In the field of applied behavior analysis, concurrent operants assessments have been used effectively to identify relative preference for concurrently available reinforcers. In the current study, choice assessments using concurrent operants arrangements were used to evaluate the reinforcing properties of perseverative conversation in children and adolescents with Asperger's disorder. Five participants, all with Asperger's disorder and reported difficulties with perseverative conversation, were assessed in three phases: A preference assessment for conversation topics; an assessment of preference for reinforcer dimensions; and an assessment of preference for competing dimensions. In the first phase a two-stage preference assessment separated high-preferred from less-preferred conversation topics and in the second and third phases participants were asked to make choices regarding their preference for conversation content, conversational style, and conversation duration. Phase II results suggested that participants preferred conversing about their respective circumscribed interests over neutral topics, actively conversing rather than listening, and conversing for longer duration rather than shorter duration. Phase III, which assessed relative preference for the three reinforcer dimensions, resulted in a hierarchy of preference for all but one participant. Two participants demonstrated the strongest preference for conversation content and two participants demonstrated the strongest preference for conversational style. Conversation duration was least preferred by four of the five participants. Perseverative conversation occurred at a relatively high rate across all assessment phases. The results are discussed in terms of current theoretical explanations for perseverative thinking and behavior, implications for treatment, and future research of this problem vocal behavior.

L’objet de ce travail était d’observer les effets éventuels d’un nouveau traitement chez des enfants avec des Troubles Envahissants du Développement. Pour cela, nous avons comparé deux groupes d’enfants TED, l’un étant traité l’autre constituant un groupe témoin, à travers des domaines de la cognition, de la sensorialité et des comportements de la vie quotidienne et de la socialisation. Nous avons rassemblé différents outils pour notre méthodologie : questionnaires parentaux, évaluations psychométriques et évaluations psychophysiques.Nous avons également utilisé une approche comparative pour le domaine sensoriel en intégrant un groupe d’enfant au développement typique.Les résultats obtenus dans le cadre de notre travail ont permis de mettre en avant que l’ensemble des comportements évalués n’apparaissaient pas altérés dans notre population d’enfants TED. Nous avons mis en évidence des améliorations accrues des enfants traités concernant leurs capacités visuo-spatiales. Nous avons également constaté que ces enfants présentaient des améliorations de certains processus verbaux. Nous avons confirmé la présence de patterns particuliers de comportements sensoriels chez les enfants TED par rapport à la population neurotypique. En revanche, nous n’avons pas mis en évidence de différence d’évolution entre nos deux groupes d’enfants TED au regard de ces altérations sensorielles. Enfin, les comportements répétés et restreints apparaissaient améliorés de manière accrue chez les enfants TED traités mais nous n’avons pas confirmé les améliorations des comportements sociaux rapportées par les études précédentes. Cette étude a apporté des résultats qui nécessitent d’être scrutés plus en détail, à plus grande échelle. / The purpose of this work is to observe the potential effects of new treatment in children with Pervasive Developmental Disorders. For this, we compared two groups of children with PDD, one being treated the other constituting a control group, across domains of cognition, sensory and behaviors of daily life and socialization. We collected different tools for our methodology: parental questionnaires, psychometric assessments and psychophysical assessments. We also used a comparative approach for the sensory domain integrating a typical child development group.The results of this work highlight that whole of the evaluated behaviors did not appear altered in our population of children with PDD. We pointed out increased improvements in treated children regarding their visuospatial abilities. We also found that these children had improvements in some verbal processes. We confirmed the presence of particular patterns of sensory behavior in children with PDD compared to the typically developed population.However, we did not show any difference in evolution of these sensory alterations between our two groups of children with PDD. Finally, repeated and restricted behaviors appeared to be more alleviated in treated PDD children than control PDD children but we did not confirm the improvements in social behaviors reported by previous studies. This study has brought results that need to be scrutinized in more detail, on a larger scale.