Teaching children with autism spectrum disorder to tact olfactory stimuli

Research on tact acquisition by children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has often focused on teaching participants to tact visual stimuli. It is important to evaluate procedures for teaching tacts of nonvisual stimuli (e.g., olfactory, tactile). The purpose of the current study was to extend the literature on secondary target instruction and tact training by evaluating the effects of a discrete‐trial instruction procedure involving (a) echoic prompts, a constant prompt delay, and error correction for primary targets; (b) inclusion of secondary target stimuli in the consequent portion of learning trials; and (c) multiple exemplar training on the acquisition of item tacts of olfactory stimuli, emergence of category tacts of olfactory stimuli, generalization of category tacts, and emergence of category matching, with three children diagnosed with ASD. Results showed that all participants learned the item and category tacts following teaching, participants demonstrated generalization across category tacts, and category matching emerged for all participants.     

Off-task Behaviours and Outcomes: An Exploratory Investigation of a Neglected Domain in Organisational Behaviour

Bien que les travailleurs s'adonnent à la fois à nombre de tâches formelles et informelles, les recherches centrées sur le comportement organisationnel s'intéressent préférentiellement aux conduites formelles et à leur produit. Quand l'attention se porte sur les comportements informels, c'est généralement pour les atténuer ou les éliminer. On soutient dans cet article que les comportements informels doivent être pris en considération même si c'est la tâche à accomplir qui est l'objet de la problématique. On a, dans deux recherches exploitant des échantillons de 133 et 137 individus, relevé une série de comportements informels et étudié la relation entre leur fréquence d'apparition et la satisfaction. Les implications des comportements informels sont analysées du point de vue de la nature changeante du travail.
Although people at work engage in a number of on-task and off-task behaviours, the preponderance of behavioural research in organisations is directed towards on-task behaviours and the outcomes resulting from them. When attention is paid to off-task behaviours, it is usually directed at decreasing or eliminating such behaviours. The position taken here is that off-task behaviours must be understood even if our concern is with task behaviour. Two studies, with samples of 137 and 133 persons, identified a subset of off-task behaviours and explored the relationship of their reported occurrence to job satisfaction. Implications of off-task behaviour at work are discussed with respect to the changing nature of work.