PRELIMINARY EVALUATION OF AN OBSERVATION SYSTEM FOR RECORDING PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN CHILDREN

Although mechanical means of measuring physical activity are available, they cannot provide information about the context in which such activity occurs. Therefore, direct‐observation systems remain essential tools for studying physical activity. The Observational System for Recording Physical Activity in Children (OSRAC) is a direct‐observation system for recording physical activity and associated environmental variables. We evaluated the concurrent validity of the OSRAC physical activity codes with two types of mechanical measures of physical activity: pedometers and heart‐rate monitors. The results indicate that heart rates and step totals generally covaried with the OSRAC activity‐level codes, suggesting that these codes are valid measures of physical activity in preschool children. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Infant sign training and functional analysis

We taught manual signs to typically developing infants using a reversal design and caregiver-nominated stimuli. We delivered the stimuli on a time-based schedule during baseline. During the intervention, we used progressive prompting and reinforcement, described by Thompson et al. (2004, 2007), to establish mands. Following sign training, we conducted functional analyses and verified that the signs functioned as mands. These results provide preliminary validation for the verbal behavior functional analysis methodology and further evidence of the functional independence of verbal operants.     

Behavioral assessment of physical activity in obese preschool children

We measured changes in physical activity in 2 obese preschool children when a package intervention was evaluated in a reversal design. Physical activity was measured via direct observation and pedometers. Although the intervention produced only modest increases in activity, the results provide preliminary concurrent validation for the dependent measures used, in that the two measures covaried and a similar degree of change was observed with each across baseline and intervention phases.