The current set of experiments examined the utility of implementing the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge (PEAK) Relational Training System (Dixon, 2014a, 2014b), an empirically validated assessment and intervention guide developed for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), within Intensive Behavioral Intervention (IBI). Experiment 1 examined the relationship between scores on the commonly used Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales Second Edition (VABS-II) (Sparrow, Cicchetto, & Balla, 2005) and scores on the PEAK Direct Training (PEAK-DT) (Dixon, 2014a) and PEAK Generalization (PEAK-G) (Dixon, 2014b) program assessments to examine additional psychometric properties suggesting the potential utility for use within IBI services. Experiment 2 examined the extent to which the PEAK manual (Dixon, 2014b) or additional staff training increased PEAK discrete trial training (DTT) procedural integrity of staff providing IBI to children diagnosed with ASD. Experiment 3 examined the effects of PEAK-G curriculum and instruction on the advanced language skills of children with ASD receiving IBI services. Results suggest that PEAK may be a valid assessment tool and effective intervention guide for use in IBI. Also, the manual and other effective staff training procedures (e.g., feedback, behavioral skills training) effectively enhance PEAK-G DTT procedural integrity. Lastly, the set of experiments in the current paper contributes to the dissemination of empirically based, behavior-analytic research that contributes to practical assessments and advanced interventions for children diagnosed with ASD. Specifically, PEAK-G enhances the language repertoires of children diagnosed with ASD through direct contingencies and programming for generalization across generalization gradients.

The present study investigates the language phenomenon of stimulus equivalence in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Stimulus equivalence is comprised of 3 main concepts: reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity. Specifically, the researcher evaluated the ability to teach, test, and transfer sequential reflexivity across two participants. Two 4-year-old children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder participated in the study. Methods were derived from the program: Reflexivity: Pictures – 2A, along with a yes/no response modification to suite both of the participant’s current level of developmental skills. The results suggest that the PEAK-E curriculum was effective in training and testing both children to establish reflexivity across stimulus set one. In addition, both participants demonstrated a transfer of stimulus function to an untrained stimulus set two once the trained stimulus set one was mastered.

The increasing prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder has produced a longstanding relevance for continued progressive measures towards a systematic approach to the treatment of deficient language repertoires. Current behavior analytic assessments, such as the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills-Revised (ABLLS-R), have demonstrated utility in providing relative measures of the functional characteristics of an individual’s language and learner repertoire, as consistent with a traditional Skinnerian approach. Further assessments have been created under other existing theoretical frameworks, such as the Test of Language Development (TOLD), and the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Relational Training System (PEAK). Each assessment was run with 17 children with Autism. A Spearman’s rank order correlation was then conducted to examine the relationships between the ABBLS-R, the TOLD-I:4, and PEAK-E-PA. Therefore, the purpose of the present investigation was to examine any existing relationships between these assessments in order to evaluate their treatment utility, produced measures, and overall implications towards an understanding of language development in children with Autism.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive lifelong developmental delay with a prevalence of 1 in 68 children. This growing epidemic occurs for unspecified causes and researchers continue to explore evidence-based treatments available. Parent–child interaction therapy (PCIT) is a parent training program, initially developed for implementation with typically-developing children. PCIT has shown effectiveness in increasing child compliance, minimizing disruptive problem, improving parent-child relationship satisfaction, and communication. The present study investigated the efficacy of PCIT as an evidence-based practice (EBP) for children with ASD by implementing a non-concurrent multiple baseline design across three participants. Results indicated socially significant increases in child compliance, decreases in aberrant behavior, rapid acquisition and maintenance of acquired parenting skills, as well as improved parent-child relationship satisfaction. This study aimed to replicate previous research measuring the effectiveness of PCIT with children with ASD.

Many children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) suffer from anxiety, depression, and other disorders. These disorders make it difficult to leave healthy and productive lives and can be experienced across school and social life. The mechanisms underlying anxiety and other disorders can be explained through language and cognition and this is the rational underlying Relational Frame Theory (RFT). RFT suggests that human language and cognition are a direct cause of many human psychological problems as we are able to evaluate words. The cognitive fusion, experiential avoidance, and suppression described by RFT have been expanded to include treatment methods within Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). ACT is a psychotherapeutic approach that attempts to undermine emotional avoidance explained through RFT and promotes positive behavior change. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the efficacy of ACT in increasing value-directed behavior in three adults with ASD. The results of this study revealed that brief ACT experiential exercises were effective in increasing value-directed behavior in all participants. Keywords: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), relational frame theory (RFT), Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)

Currently there is limited published literature on procedures for teaching distinction to individuals who are diagnosed with autism. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the procedures outlined within the PEAK T curriculum to teaching participants to respond in terms of the non-arbitrary property of distinction (i.e., “different”). The procedures that are described in the PEAK T program- 3D- Distinction: Picture Discrimination was replicated across three young males diagnosed with autism using a multiple exemplar simple discrimination training. Responding to non-arbitrary features of stimuli other than sameness is pivotal in the development of more complex forms of language. All three individuals achieved mastery criterion. The results continue to add to the need for research on the different frames of RFT.

Stimulus over-selectivity refers to the phenomenon whereby behaviour becomes controlled by one element of the environment at the expense of other equally salient aspects of the environment. It is a common problem for individuals with autism, learning disabilities, acquired neurological brain damage, the elderly and typically developing individuals under-going a cognitively demanding task. The current thesis presents 15 experiments that investigate the mechanisms of over-selectivity and explore potential remediation techniques. All experiments employed a simultaneous discrimination procedure using non-clinical participants under-going a cognitively taxing task. Experiments 1-3 demonstrated the robustness of over-selectivity across a range of test conditions. Experiments 5 and 6 extended this by exploring the potential role of conditioning effects and found no evidence of inhibition accruing to the under-selected stimulus. Experiment 4 showed that following extinction of the previously over-selected stimulus, the under-selected stimulus could emerge to control responding despite receiving no further direct training, thus supporting the use of extinction techniques to reduce over-selectivity. Experiment 7 indicated that partial reinforcement (PR) did not reduce over-selectivity and actually increased over-selectivity when participants underwent less training (Experiment 8). Experiments 9 and 10 showed that changing schedule of reinforcement from continuous reinforcement (CRF) to PR or from PR to CRF also failed to reduce overselectivity. Experiment 11 found a reduction in over-selectivity following a downward shift in reinforcer value, whilst Experiment 12 ensured that neither generalisation decrement nor PR influenced this effect. Experiments 13 and 14 suggested that the decrease in over-selectivity was due to a change in the unconditioned stimulus as opposed to changing the nature of the stimuli. Finally, Experiment 15 showed no reduction in over-selectivity when the reinforcer was qualitatively manipulated. These results are discussed in terms of theoretical perspectives of over-selectivity, and implications for the remediation of the effect.

abstract: This study explored the influence of how the development of self-determination skills affected college students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Five college students who qualified for a university-based disabilities resource program under the category of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) participated in a five session mentoring program over the course of the first 12 weeks of the fall semester. The mentoring program was designed to develop specific self-determination skills, including, self-awareness, self-advocacy, and confidence. Participants engaged in an interactive dialogue, discussing specific skills and experiences, relative to the development of self-determination skills. Pre- and post-surveys, and a post intervention interview indicated that the students reported positive results in describing that mentoring experience, and found the protocol useful in their development of self-determination skills. Implications identified for further application into practice, include (a) a deeper appreciation and review of the participants’ background and experience, (b) the development and implementation of peer-to-peer mentoring, (c) the need for more intentional collaboration with high school partners, (d) the need to expand the skills being developed, and (e), the need to expand the number of services and resources discussed. This study will be used in the exploration of a broader collegiate mentoring program geared towards students with ASD with the purpose of increasing self-determination skills. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2017

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that characteristically involves an impaired capacity to engage in reciprocal social interaction and to use eye-gaze for social purposes. This collection of conversation analytic studies examines naturally-occurring interactions involving Finnish children diagnosed with autism. The data consist of video-recorded interactions of four children, aged between 9-12 years, each engaged in dyadic or multiparty interactions with a range of familiar co-participants (teachers, parents, and siblings) at home, school, and music club. Comparative data from neurotypical interactions are also considered. The aim is to use conversation analysis to better understand how the children with autism interact in everyday settings. The study examines the organization of interactions as sequences of action, and how eye-gaze and other multimodal resources are involved in the orientation to and production of initiating and responsive actions (e.g. questions and answers). The analyses show (1) competencies with respect to using eye-gaze at relevant sequential environments to mobilise a response from a co-participant, and using smiling as an interactional resource while orienting to the response-implicativeness of eye-gaze; (2) displays of self-consciousness (involving averted gaze and other conduct) can occur when the participants orient to the children's non-production of a response that has been made relevant; (3) child's gaze aversion can become problematic in particular sequential locations, namely, when the child's response is noticeably absent and treated as unforthcoming; (4) how the handling of material objects can provide a resource when eliciting interactional involvement with the child. The findings indicate areas of interactional competence and show how, on some occasions, the direction of eye-gaze and body orientation can become interactionally problematic. The merits of researching naturally occurring interactions, and the prospect of incorporating a conversation analytic component as part of clinical assessments, are discussed.

Prisoners have high rates of physical and mental morbidity and of re-offending. There have been concerns that autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) may be overrepresented and under-diagnosed in this population. The aims of this study were to examine the effectiveness of an instrument which was developed to screen for ASDs in prisons and to establish whether male Scottish prisoners differ from community controls with respect to facial emotion recognition, as measured by behavioural testing, and differ on a neural basis while performing complex social judgements, as measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). A total of 2458 prisoners (approximately 40% of the convicted prison population) were examined using the screening tool, of whom a further 127 were interviewed in depth and were assessed for facial emotion recognition ability. FMRI was used to examine haemodynamic changes in a small sample of liberated prisoners (9) during a social judgement (approachability) versus control (gender judgments) task. The screening tool had poor sensitivity (28.6%) and specificity (75.6%) and was not effective or useful in screening for ASDs in this population. Significant deficits in negative facial emotion recognition were found in the prisoner group in comparison with age- and sex-matched community controls. Region of interest analysis of fMRI data in the bilateral amygdala revealed significantly greater activation in the left amygdala in ex-prisoners versus controls during the social judgement task. The identification of these abnormalities in facial emotion recognition and social judgement are in keeping with current literature on antisocial populations. They may offer the opportunity for development of interventions aimed at reducing re-offending in the future.