studies have examined children's toy preferences as they relate to sex-role development. However, studies have failed to examine the dimensions of the toys themselves. Because adults purchase the majority of toys children receive, this study sought to determine adult student perceptions of children's traditionally sex-typed toys. Eighty-one participants rated ten selected toys. Multidimensional scaling analysis revealed five underlying dimensions. The five dimensions included Productive Play, Sociability, Structure, Gender, and Age. It was discovered that the Gender dimension was less salient than both the Productive Play and Sociability dimensions. The dimensions pertaining to each toy are discussed.

Children diagnosed with autism are often described as having limited or restricted activities that serve as reinforcers as compared to neurotypical peers. Many theories suggest that one of the many ways children develop is through participation in play. This results in children coming into contact with new environmental stimuli. The procedures used to enhance play skills for children diagnosed with autism typically involve training novel responses with novel stimuli (e.g., toys). This is often done using naturalistic procedures. Because multiple procedures are used, it is unclear what procedure or combination of procedures causes the increases in play repertoires. This study investigated an important component of the treatment package know as reciprocal imitation training. Specifically, the study examined whether increased opportunities, contingent imitation without the requirement to imitate, or contingent imitation with the requirement to imitate would increase the number of toys a child diagnosed with autism would play with. The results showed dramatic increases in the number of toys the child independently chose to play with and an increase in the spontaneous use of different response topographies across novel stimuli only when the student was required to imitate a model. The results are discussed in terms of mediated generalization, the use of common responses, stimulus class formation and stimulus class expansion.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between exposure to prosocial and antisocial toys and the subsequent effects on children's short-term prosocial and antisocial behavior. The behaviors examined were physical antisocial behavior, verbal antisocial behavior, physical prosocial behavior, and verbal prosocial behavior. The dependent measures for these behaviors were constructed based upon Turner and Goldsmith's (1976) measures for antisocial behavior, Potts, Huston, and Wright's (1986) measures for prosocial behavior, and Radke- Yarrow, Zahn-Waxler, and Chapman's (1983) description of prosocial behavior. The theoretical basis for this study lies in the social learning theories offered by Bandura (1977) and Berkowitz (1974). Multivariate Analyses of Variance and Wilcoxon's Signed-rank tests were used to test the hypotheses. Main effects were found for toy condition and for gender. The antisocial toy condition yielded the highest rates of antisocial behavior. The prosocial toy condition yielded the highest rates of prosocial behavior. The girls' behaviors tended to be of a verbal nature, and the boy's behaviors tended to be of a physical nature. / Master of Science