Objective: This study examined various dimensions of reinforcement learning in children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD). Specific investigations included (1) speed of learning from reinforcement; (2) impact of concreteness of the reinforcer; (3) comparison of response to two types of shifts in reinforcement; and (4) relationship of reinforcement learning to parent reported social and behavioral functioning.
Participants & Methods: Participants included 19 children with FASD without an intellectual disability, ages 11 to 17, and 19 age- and sex-matched Control participants (11 male, 8 female per group). Each participant completed two novel visual reinforcement learning discrimination tasks (counterbalanced), each administered twice. The first task involved categorical learning followed by either a reversal or a nonreversal shift. The second task involved a computerized probabilistic paradigm (70% contingent feedback) administered using either tokens or points, redeemable for a prize. Parents completed a history questionnaire, the Children’s Learning Questionnaire (McInerney, 2007), and the Child Behavior Checklist (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001).
Results: The Control group demonstrated significantly stronger probabilistic reinforcement learning, although the groups showed similar rates of between-condition improvement (learning savings). Furthermore, the concreteness of the reinforcer (tokens vs. points) made no significant difference in learning characteristics for either group. In contrast to probabilistic reinforcement learning, there were no significant group differences in categorical discrimination or shift learning. The FASD group demonstrated the age-appropriate pattern of reversals faster than nonreversals, while there was no difference between the two types of shifts in the Control group. A priori identified parent reports were not significantly correlated with task performance when each group was examined separately.
Conclusions: There was no support for the hypothesis that reinforcement learning occurs in a functionally different manner in children with FASD. Rather, reinforcement learning may take longer, paralleling the generally slower speed of all learning in these children, and be more dependent on recent information. This suggests that children with FASD without intellectual disability are able to learn from reinforcement if given sufficient consistent repetition. However, failure of reinforcement learning may occur for a variety of reasons not addressed in this study, including difficulty with transfer of learning or impulsivity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uvic.ca/oai:dspace.library.uvic.ca:1828/1476 |
| Date | 24 July 2009 |
| Creators | Engle, Jennifer Aileen |
| Contributors | Kerns, Kimberly A. |
| Source Sets | University of Victoria |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | Available to the World Wide Web |
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