Evaluation of stimulus intensity fading on reduction of rapid eating in a child with autism

This study assessed the effects of a vibrating pager on reduction of rapid eating. The study also evaluated two strategies for fading the pager, by intensity and by frequency. The pager was successful in decreasing the pace of eating to an appropriate level and the pager prompt was successfully faded. Fading by frequency was ineffective in maintaining an appropriate pace of eating while intensity fading was successful.     

Establishing motion control in children with autism and intellectual disability: Applications for anatomical and functional MRI

Excessive motion makes magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) extremely challenging among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The medical risks of sedation establish the need for behavioral interventions to promote motion control among children with ASD undergoing MRI scans. We present a series of experiments aimed at establishing both tolerance of the MRI environment and a level of motion control that would be compatible with a successful MRI. During Study 1, we evaluated the effects of prompting and contingent reinforcement on compliance with a sequence of successive approximations to an MRI using a mock MRI. During Study 2, we used prompting and progressive differential reinforcement of other behaviors (DRO) to promote motion control in a mock MRI for increasing periods of time. Finally, during Study 3, some of the participants underwent a real MRI scan while a detailed in‐session motion analysis informed the quality of the images captured.     

A comparison of prompting methods to teach sight words to students with autism spectrum disorder

Time delay procedures are one of the most commonly used and effective strategies for teaching sight words to learners with disabilities. However, less is known about whether they are differentially effective and efficient with learners. This study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of progressive time delay and simultaneous prompting on sight word acquisition among three learners with autism spectrum disorder using an adapted alternating treatments design across word sets. For two participants, both procedures led to skill acquisition with no clear differences in efficiency. For the remaining participant, neither procedure was effective; therefore, the reading task was changed to a receptive one, and a stimulus fading intervention package was implemented.     

Increasing compliance with haircuts in a child with autism

Using a changing‐criterion design, we evaluated the effects of providing a preferred edible item and escape from sitting contingent on a child's compliance with sitting during haircuts. Results indicated that the intervention eliminated the child's escape responses and increased his sitting to a duration that permitted regular haircuts by his mother. Follow‐up sessions showed that the participant's increased compliance during haircuts continued for over 2 months. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Behavioral momentum and stimulus fading in the acquisition and maintenance of child compliance in the home

The provision of a series of requests to which compliance is highly likely (high-probability requests) immediately antecedent to low-probability requests has been used to establish behavioral momentum of compliance. We evaluated a fading procedure for maintaining high levels of compliance obtained with high-probability requests. Fading involved a systematic reduction in the number of high-probability requests and an increase in the latency between the high- and low-probability requests. High levels of compliance for both "do" and "don't" requests were maintained for 16 weeks in a 5-year-old boy with developmental disabilities after the high-probability request sequence was faded. Similar maintenance was obtained for "do" requests in a 15-year-old girl with developmental disabilities. For this subject, however, the high-probability request sequence was ineffective with "don't" requests. When "don't" requests were phrased as "do" requests, the high-probability request sequence produced high levels of compliance to the low-probability request. High levels of compliance to these "do" requests were maintained for 16 weeks after the high-probability request sequence was faded.     

Increasing compliance with wearing a medical device in children with autism

Health professionals often recommend the use of medical devices to assess the health, monitor the well-being, or improve the quality of life of their patients. Children with autism may present challenges in these situations as their sensory peculiarities may increase refusals to wear such devices. To address this issue, we systematically replicated prior research by examining the effects of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) to increase compliance with wearing a heart rate monitor in 2 children with autism. The intervention increased compliance to 100% for both participants when an edible reinforcer was delivered every 90 s. The results indicate that DRO does not require the implementation of extinction to increase compliance with wearing a medical device. More research is needed to examine whether the reinforcement schedule can be further thinned.     

Reducing rapid eating in teenagers with autism: use of a pager prompt

This study assessed the effects of a vibrating pager for increasing the duration of meal consumption in 3 teenagers with autism who were observed to eat too quickly. Participants were taught to take a bite only when the pager vibrated at predetermined intervals. A reversal design indicated that the vibrating pager successfully increased the total duration of mealtime, thereby slowing the pace of consumption for all 3 participants.     

Establishing a generalized repertoire of helping behavior in children with autism

The present study used a multiple baseline across participants design to assess whether 4 children with autism could learn a generalized repertoire of helping adults with different tasks through the use of a multicomponent teaching package. Different helping responses were taught in the presence of multiple exemplars of discriminative stimuli drawn from experimenter-defined categories of helping behavior (e.g., locating objects, putting away items, setting up an activity). During the training condition, video models, prompting, and reinforcement were used. The results showed that all 4 children learned to emit appropriate helping responses in the presence of discriminative stimuli from the helping categories used during training. Generalization of helping responses was observed in the presence of untrained discriminative stimuli during additional probe conditions. Additional pre- and postintervention generalization trials showed that the frequency of helping responses also increased in the presence of novel stimuli, in a novel setting, and with a novel instructor.     

Establishing five derived mands in three adolescent boys with autism

Three 14-year-old boys with diagnoses of autism learned to mand for the delivery or removal of tokens by presenting nonsense syllables (A(1-5), respectively). A match-to-sample procedure was used to establish conditional discriminations between the 5 A stimuli and 5 B stimuli and between the B stimuli and 5 C stimuli. Subsequently, each participant was able to use the C stimuli to mand, illustrating a transfer of function, although 1 participant first required multiple-exemplar training.     

Increasing response diversity in children with autism

Repetitive and invariant behavior is a diagnostic feature of autism. We implemented a lag reinforcement schedule to increase response diversity for 6 participants with autism aged 6 to 10 years, 4 of whom also received prompting plus additional training. These procedures appeared to increase the variety of building-block structures, demonstrating that an intervention that includes differential reinforcement can increase response diversity for children with an autism spectrum disorder.     

A comparison of prompting tactics to establish intraverbals in children with autism

We compared the efficacy of tact-to-intraverbal (i.e., using picture prompts) and echoic-to-intraverbal transfer-of-stimulus-control procedures to establish intraverbal responding in 3 boys (4 years old) with autism. For all 3 participants, the picture prompts resulted in fewer trials to criterion, but both prompting tactics were eventually effective.     

Teaching effective hand raising to children with autism during group instruction

We taught 3 children with autism to raise a hand or keep both hands down depending on their status (e.g., having heard a target word, possessing a specific item) using modeling, prompting, and reinforcement. All 3 children acquired accurate hand-raising skills in response to progressively more difficult discrimination tasks during group instruction. The implications for preparing children for general education settings are discussed.     

Coping and care-related stress in parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder

Background and Objectives: Parenting a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is challenging and can result in elevated levels of parenting stress. This study investigated the relationship between parent-ratings of their child’s ASD symptoms and two conceptually different measures of parenting stress: One specific to the ASD context and the other a general stress measure applicable to the broader caregiving context. Additionally, the influence of coping style on the relationship between child’s ASD symptoms and parenting stress was investigated.

Design and Methods: Using an internet survey, parents (N?=?178) caring for a child with ASD reported on coping strategies, completed two measures of parenting stress, and assessed their child’s ASD symptoms.

Results: Parenting stress increased with severity of the child’s ASD symptoms, but the strength of this relationship depended on whether a general or disorder-specific measure of parenting stress was used. Regression analyses indicated that some coping strategies moderated the impact of ASD symptom severity on the parent’s care-related stress, but moderation depended on how stress was conceptualized.

Conclusion: This study reinforces the importance of identifying the coping strategies of parents of children with developmental disorders, and highlights the consequences of using different conceptual approaches to measure parenting stress.     

Shaping approach responses as intervention for specific phobia in a child with autism

We evaluated contact desensitization (reinforcing approach responses) as intervention for specific phobia with a child diagnosed with autism. During hospital-based intervention, the boy was able to encounter previously avoided stimuli. Parental report suggested that results were maintained postdischarge.     

Direct and distal effects of noncontingent juice on rumination exhibited by a child with autism

Previous research has demonstrated the efficacy of the noncontingent delivery of foods and liquids at suppressing rumination, the repeated regurgitation and rechewing of partially digested food. However, it is unclear how long this reduction is maintained after caregivers terminate this procedure. The current study examined the direct and distal effects of noncontingent juice on rumination by measuring the duration of rumination during juice delivery and immediately following the termination of juice delivery. Noncontingent juice suppressed rumination, but this suppression was not maintained after delivery termination.     

Using a combined blocking procedure to teach color discrimination to a child with autism

A combined blocking procedure was used to teach a child with autism to select two colors on request. First, two color cards were placed at fixed locations on a table and the experimenter repeatedly requested the child to touch one of the colors. After 10 consecutive correct selections, the child was asked to touch the other color. Blocks of trials with each color were systematically thinned until requests were presented randomly with few errors. Subsequently, the location of the selection cards was systematically alternated until the child was able to touch the correct card when both requests and card positions were presented in random fashion.