Parent treatment of complex pica in a teen with autism

Pica is a severe behavior disorder involving the persistent consumption of nonnutritive substances. Due to health complications and risks for fatality, designing effective behavioral treatments that are feasible for implementation by family members at home is imperative. This case report presents a parent-conducted functional analysis and treatment evaluation of automatically maintained pica in a teenager with autism spectrum disorder. Initial treatment with a competing stimulus was effective when paired with response interruption and redirection. Although effective, this combination of treatment components required very close parental proximity and led to increases in untargeted body-oriented pica (e.g., ingestion of skin, hair, and nails). Upon extending treatment to include the second topography of pica, both the originally targeted (object-oriented) pica and body-oriented pica decreased. Nonetheless, treatment effects were not sustained while fading parent proximity. The treatment was then augmented a third time with response cost. This final treatment package produced clinically significant reductions in all pica, facilitated parent proximity fading until the participant was alone, extended to their home, and maintained over a year of follow up.     

Interpersonal consequences of joint food consumption for connection and conflict

For centuries, the preparation and eating of a meal has brought people together, making food consumption an inherently social process. Yet the way in which people connect over food is changing. Rising health concerns, due in part to the increase in food allergies and obesity, have shifted attention away from the social aspects of food to food's nutritional aspects. Recognizing the social context in which food consumption takes place, this article reviews research highlighting the interpersonal consequences of joint food consumption. We first examine research on how sharing food connects people together, both via the type of food consumed (e.g., incidental food similarity) and the manner in which people serve and eat food (e.g., from shared vs. separate plates). We then turn to research that addresses the opposite side of the coin, discussing how the inability to share in a meal can be isolating, as well as how people navigate conflicting preferences when making food decisions with others. We conclude with a discussion of promising future directions for research on joint food consumption.     

Preference ratings of images representing archetypal themes: an empirical study of the concept of archetypes

Archetype Theory is consistent with the full range of empirical psychological research, yet has not itself been empirically studied. As part of a project to integrate psychological theory, especially psychotherapeutic theory, with empirical research, I asked 151 subjects to rate their preferences for images representing archetypal themes and factor analysed their responses. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that archetypal themes determine affective responses in adults. Archetype theory may prove itself to be useful in operationalizing a number of contemporary psychological theories.     

A distance-based variety of nonlinear multivariate data analysis, including weights for objects and variables

In the distance approach to nonlinear multivariate data analysis the focus is on the optimal representation of the relationships between the objects in the analysis. In this paper two methods are presented for including weights in distance-based nonlinear multivariate data analysis. In the first method, weights are assigned to the objects while the second method is concerned with differential weighting of groups of variables. When each analysis variable defines a group the latter method becomes a variable weighting method. For objects the weights are assumed to be given; for groups of variables they may be given, or estimated. These weighting schemes can also be combined and have several important applications. For example, they make it possible to perform efficient analyses of large data sets, to use the distance-based variety of nonlinear multivariate data analysis as an addition to loglinear analysis of multiway contingency tables, and to do stability studies of the solutions by applying the bootstrap on the objects or the variables in the analysis. These and other applications are discussed, and an efficient algorithm is proposed to minimize the corresponding loss function.This study is funded by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) by grant nr. 030-56403 for the PIONEER project Subject Oriented Multivariate Analysis to the third author.     

ESTABLISHING DISCRIMINATIVE CONTROL OF RESPONDING USING FUNCTIONAL AND ALTERNATIVE REINFORCERS DURING FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING

Functional communication training (FCT) is a popular treatment for problem behaviors, but its effectiveness may be compromised when the client emits the target communication response and reinforcement is either delayed or denied. In the current investigation, we trained 2 individuals to emit different communication responses to request (a) the reinforcer for destructive behavior in a given situation (e.g., contingent attention in the attention condition of a functional analysis) and (b) an alternative reinforcer (e.g., toys in the attention condition of a functional analysis). Next, we taught the participants to request each reinforcer in the presence of a different discriminative stimulus (S^D). Then, we evaluated the effects of differential reinforcement of communication (DRC) using the functional and alternative reinforcers and correlated S^Ds, with and without extinction of destructive behavior. During all applications, DRC (in combination with S^Ds that signaled available reinforcers) rapidly reduced destructive behavior to low levels regardless of whether the functional reinforcer or an alternative reinforcer was available or whether reinforcement for destructive behavior was discontinued (i.e., extinction).     

WHAT DOES A PIGEON SEE IN A PICASSO?

The present paper is primarily a response to Watanabe, Sakamoto, and Wakita's 1995 paper “Pigeons' Discrimination of Paintings by Monet and Picasso.” Our main criticism is that the key term concept, and in particular the way in which a class of stimuli is specified, remains equivocal. We argue that it is only useful to study categorization if the organism in question can be expected to have access to the information that is used in defining the classes, and that evidence for categorization requires selective responses that cannot be attributed to similarity in features that are not essential to the classification.     

Why behavior analysts should study emotion: the example of anxiety.

Historically, anxiety has been a dominant subject in mainstream psychology but an incidental or even insignificant one in behavior analysis. We discuss several reasons for this discrepancy. We follow with a behavior-analytic conceptualization of anxiety that could just as easily be applied to emotion in general. Its primary points are (a) that language-able humans have an extraordinary capacity to derive relations between events and that it is a simple matter to show that neutral stimuli can acquire discriminative functions indirectly with no direct training; (b) that private events can readily acquire discriminative functions; (c) that anxiety disorders seem to occur with little apparent direct learning or that the amount of direct learning is extraordinarily out of proportion with the amount of responding; and (d) that the primary function of anxious behavior is experiential avoidance. We conclude that the most interesting aspects of anxiety disorders may occur as a function of derived rather than direct relations between public events and overt and private responses with avoidance functions. Implicit in this conclusion and explicit in the paper is the assertion that anxiety is a suitable subject for behavior-analytic study.     

INCREASING COMPLIANCE WITH MEDICAL PROCEDURES: APPLICATION OF THE HIGH-PROBABILITY REQUEST PROCEDURE TO A TODDLER

The effects of high-probability (high-p) requests on compliance with low-probability (low-p) responses have received increased attention from applied investigators. This study examined the effects of a high-p procedure on a toddler's compliance with medical procedures. Compliance to low-p requests occurred more frequently following compliance to high-p requests, suggesting that this procedure may be useful across different topographies of compliance.     

Topographical variations in behavior during autoshaping, automaintenance, and omission training

Three pigeons were exposed to an autoshaping and automaintenance procedure while a computer-controlled tracking system continuously recorded the position of the bird's head as it moved freely in the experimental chamber. Although only 2 birds pecked the key during the conditional stimulus (red keylight), all 3 birds exhibited stable patterns of approaching the conditional stimulus and withdrawing from the intertrial stimulus (white keylight). Subsequent exposure to an omission procedure, in which pecks on the red key cancelled the presentation of food upon the termination of the red keylight, greatly reduced key pecking, but approaching and pecking in the vicinity of the conditional stimulus were maintained at high levels. When the omission contingency was removed key pecking increased. During all phases the birds withdrew from the area of the white key and engaged in repetitive back-and-forth or circuiting movements during this intertrial stimulus. The data document (a) the strong control the conditional stimulus in autoshaping and automaintenance exerts over approach to the key and pecking motions whether or not the conditional stimulus elicits key pecking at a high level; and (b) withdrawal from the vicinity of the key and the occurrence of stereotypic behavior during the intertrial interval.     

Discriminative stimulus control and the effects of concurrent operants.

Discriminative-stimulus-control functions were investigated in a concurrent operant context. Variable-interval reinforcement schedules were arranged for pigeons on two response keys. One key, illuminated with a white vertical line on green background (position irrelevant), was programmed with a given schedule value across groups. For different groups of pigeons, the alternative key, illuminated with green alone, was programmed with twice, the same, or half the reinforcement frequency of the other key. Stimulus-control gradients were collected from both keys as line orientation was varied. On the green-plus-line alternative, flattest gradients were observed when twice the reinforcement frequency was concurrently programmed and the steepest were observed when equal values were concurrently programmed. Also examined were the effects of a programmed changeover delay, important in maintaining the independence of concurrent operants. The changeover delay was found to have relatively minor effects upon stimulus control, despite its typical and marked effects upon steady-state responding.