Facilitating derived requesting skills with a touchscreen tablet computer for children with autism spectrum disorder

Two experiments were conducted employing derived relational responding and conditioned motivating operations to establish untaught mands with 11 children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who lacked a vocal repertoire. Following formal language assessments and preference assessments, a multi-stage automated protocol was implemented on touchscreen tablet computers. Children were first taught to mand by picture exchange for missing items necessary to play with a toy and then learned to conditionally relate the dictated names of the items to the corresponding pictures of the items (A-B training) and to relate the dictated names to the corresponding printed words (A-C training). Test probes, in the absence of reinforcement, were presented to determine whether or not participants would mand for the missing items using text exchange (hence demonstrating derived manding/requesting). Probes for spontaneous matching (B-C and C-B) and labeling (B-A and C-A) were also presented in both experiments, one of which employed a pretest/posttest design and the other a multiple probe across participants design. Across both experiments, all but one of the participants showed evidence of derived requesting and derived stimulus relations. Implications for research on high-tech devices for facilitating independent communication skills of children with ASD and for derived relational responding approaches to verbal operants are discussed.     

Evaluation of the iPad in the acquisition of requesting skills for children with autism spectrum disorder

The iPad® with the Proloquo2Go™ application is designed to function as a speech-generating device (SGD). This study evaluates whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can acquire requesting skills using the iPad® with the Proloquo2Go™ application. Participants included three children with ASD between the ages of three and five. A multiple probe design across participants was used. Intervention phases were adapted and modified from the picture exchange communication system (PECS) (Bondy and Frost, 1994, Frost and Bondy, 2002). Results of this study support that children diagnosed with ASD can acquire skills needed to request preferred items using the iPad® with the Proloquo2Go™ application with training of a picture-based communication system. In addition, vocal requesting increased for the participants during the training phases in comparison to baseline probes.     

Effects of a lag schedule of reinforcement with progressive time delay on topographical mand variability in children with autism

ABSTRACT

Objective: Evaluate the effects of a Lag 1 schedule of reinforcement and progressive time delay (TD) on topographical mand variability in children with autism. Methods: Using single-subject design methodology, a multiple baseline across behaviors with embedded reversal design was employed. During Lag 0, reinforcement was delivered contingent on any independent instances of manding. During Lag 1 + TD, prompts were faded and reinforcement was delivered contingent on independent or prompted variant mand topographies. Results: Higher levels of topographical mand variability were observed during Lag 1 + TD for both participants. Conclusions: A Lag 1 schedule of reinforcement with progressive TD increased variability across functionally equivalent vocal mand topographies for both participants. This finding extends prior literature by providing a novel model for studying reinforced mand variability in children, and by demonstrating how practitioners could use prompts and differential reinforcement to increase topographical mand variability in children with autism.     

Generalized imitation and the mand: inducing first instances of speech in young children with autism

It has been suggested that the use of a generalized motor imitation sequence before a vocal model may be an effective procedure for teaching nonvocal children with autism to speak. However, the tactic has rarely been empirically demonstrated. The purpose of this experiment was to test the effects of presenting a rapid generalized motor imitation sequence before an opportunity to imitate on the vocal speech of nonvocal children with autism. Participants emitted no vocal imitations during a mand training baseline. During the intervention, a rapid motor imitation sequence was presented before an opportunity to imitate a model's vocalizations. The teacher's presentation of the rapid motor imitation sequence was then faded by presenting an opportunity to vocally imitate without the sequence followed by an opportunity to independently mand. Results of the intervention phase indicated that all of the participants began to vocalize with the generalized motor imitation sequence and that mands were maintained during a follow-up phase and 3-month follow-up probes.     

The effectiveness of a group teaching interaction procedure for teaching social skills to young children with a pervasive developmental disorder

Deficits in social skills are characteristic of children with autism. Clinicians often include teaching these skills as part of comprehensive curriculum. One method of developing social skills for children with autism is the teaching interaction procedure. This procedure involves describing the behavior, providing a rational and cues when to use the behavior, dividing the skill into smaller steps, demonstrating the behavior, having the learner role play the behavior, and providing feedback. This study implemented a teaching interaction procedure as part of group social-skills instruction for five children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. A multiple-probe design across behaviors and replicated across participants was used. All five participants acquired the social skills taught to them and generalization was promoted.     

Vocal stereotypy in individuals with autism spectrum disorders: a review of behavioral interventions

Vocal stereotypy is a common problem behavior in individuals with autism spectrum disorders that may interfere considerably with learning and social inclusion. To assist clinicians in treating the behavior and to guide researchers in identifying gaps in the research literature, the authors provide an overview of research on vocal stereotypy in individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Specifically, the authors review the research literature on behavioral interventions to reduce engagement in vocal stereotypy with an emphasis on the applicability of the procedures in the natural environment and discuss the clinical implications and limitations of research conducted to date. Researchers have shown that several antecedent-based and consequence-based interventions may be effective at reducing vocal stereotypy. However, the review suggests that more research is needed to assist clinicians in initially selecting interventions most likely to produce desirable changes in vocal stereotypy and collateral behavior in specific circumstances.     

The Collateral Effects of Joint Attention Training on Social Initiations, Positive Affect, Imitation, and Spontaneous Speech for Young Children with Autism

Joint attention may be a core deficit in autism which underlies the abnormal development of later emerging social-communication behaviors. Given this theory, researchers have suggested that teaching young children with autism to engage in joint attention may lead to collateral increases in other non-targeted social-communication behaviors. In this study, children with autism participated in a 10-week joint attention training program and collateral changes in non-targeted behaviors were assessed. Following participation in the intervention, positive collateral changes were observed in social initiations, positive affect, imitation, play, and spontaneous speech. Results support the hypothesis that teaching joint attention skills leads to improvement in a variety of related skills and have implications for the treatment of young children with autism.     

The effects of item preference and token reinforcement on sharing behavior exhibited by children with autism spectrum disorder

The current studies evaluated variables affecting sharing exhibited by children with autism spectrum disorder. Study 1 evaluated the effects of manipulating item preference on the level of assistance needed to exhibit sharing behavior for 4 children with autism. Item preference clearly affected 2 participants’ percentage of independent sharing. Preference did not have as clear of an effect for a third participant. However, sharing a high-preference item generally required a higher level of prompting (e.g., vocal prompts) to share. The fourth participant's percentage of independent sharing was not influenced by preference, and his independent sharing behavior was similar across item preference. Study 2 assessed the effectiveness of a token reinforcement procedure as an intervention designed to increase independent sharing of high-preference items for the two participants who did not independently share those items during Study 1. Independent sharing increased for both participants when the token procedure was in place and decreased when it was removed.     

Social Interaction and Repetitive Motor Behaviors

Students with autism have difficulty initiating social interactions and may exhibit repetitive motor behavior (e.g., body rocking, hand flapping). Increasing social interaction by teaching new skills may lead to reductions in problem behavior, such as motor stereotypies. Additionally, self-monitoring strategies can increase the maintenance of skills. A multiple baseline design was used to examine whether multi-component social skills intervention (including peer training, social initiation instruction, and self-monitoring) led to a decrease in repetitive motor behavior. Social initiations for all participants increased when taught to initiate, and social interactions continued when self-monitoring was introduced. Additionally, participants' repetitive motor behavior was reduced. Changes in social behavior and in repetitive motor behavior maintained more than one month after the intervention ended.     

Contriving motivating operations to evoke mands for information in preschoolers with autism

Four preschoolers with autism participated in the study. Stimulus preference assessments were conducted to identify high and low preferred items, which were then hidden or given to an adult in order to contrive motivation for the information about the location of the items. The first experiment involved the manipulation of motivating operations to evoke the mand “Where is it?” Upon successful acquisition of this initial mand for information, students participated in a second experiment involving the manipulation of a motivating operation to evoke the mand “Who has it?” All participants successfully acquired the ability to mand for information.     

The role of joint control in teaching listener responding to children with autism and other developmental disabilities

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a teaching procedure derived from the analysis of joint control in increasing listener responses for three children with autism using a multiple probe design across participants. One nonvocal and two vocal children with autism were taught to select multiple pictures of items from a large array in the order in which they were requested (e.g., “Give me the ball, cup, and spoon”) using the joint control teaching procedure. The effect of these procedures on the emission of accurate selection responses to both trained and novel stimulus sets was measured. The results indicated that listener responses to trained stimuli increased following the implementation of the independent variable and untrained responses across novel stimulus sets also emerged. Implications for designing language training programs for children with autism based on an analysis of joint control are discussed.     

Impact of training peers and children with autism on social skills during center time activities in inclusive classrooms

This study was conducted to increase peer-to-peer social skills using direct instruction and peer training in two elementary students with autism spectrum disorders in inclusion settings. The participants and their non-disabled peers were trained to initiate and respond to each other during center time, academic activities. We used a multiple-baseline design across participants to determine the effects of the intervention. Increased initiations and responses in all participants were noted. Implications for practice and research are discussed.     

The effect of motivating operations on the transfer from tacts to mands for children diagnosed with autism

This study examined the effect of motivating operations (MO) on the emergence of a mand following tact training. Two children with autism were taught to tact a high-preferred (HP) edible identified through a preference assessment. The children were then tested to see if a mand for the HP edible emerged under deprivation (24+ h) and pre-session exposure (immediately prior to the mand test) test conditions. Following tact training, both participants manded for the HP edible in the deprivation condition but little to no responding occurred in the pre-session exposure condition. The results from this study suggest that a tact-to-mand transfer may occur under certain conditions.     

Orienting to social stimuli differentiates social cognitive impairment in autism and schizophrenia

Both autism and schizophrenia feature deficits in aspects of social cognition that may be related to amygdala dysfunction, but it is unclear whether these are similar or different patterns of impairment. We compared the visual scanning patterns and emotion judgments of individuals with autism, individuals with schizophrenia and controls on a task well characterized with respect to amygdala functioning. On this task, eye movements of participants are recorded as they assess emotional content within a series of complex social scenes where faces are either included or digitally erased. Results indicated marked abnormalities in visual scanning for both disorders. Controls increased their gaze on face regions when faces were present to a significantly greater degree than both the autism or schizophrenia groups. While the control and the schizophrenia groups oriented to face regions faster when faces were present compared to when they were absent, the autism group oriented at the same rate in both conditions. The schizophrenia group, meanwhile, exhibited a delay in orienting to face regions across both conditions, although whether anti-psychotic medication contributed to this effect is unclear. These findings suggest that while processing emotional information in social scenes, both individuals with autism and individuals with schizophrenia fixate faces less than controls, although only those with autism fail to orient to faces more rapidly based on the presence of facial information. Autism and schizophrenia may therefore share an abnormality in utilizing facial information for assessing emotional content in social scenes, but differ in the ability to seek out socially relevant cues from complex stimuli. Impairments in social orienting are discussed within the context of evidence suggesting the role of the amygdala in orienting to emotionally meaningful information.     

Assessing the acquisition and generalization of two mand forms with adults with severe developmental disabilities

The purpose of this study was to determine whether manual sign or the Picture Exchange Communication System (P.E.C.S.) (Frost and Bondy, 1994) would be more effective in teaching mand skills to adults with mental retardation in the severe and profound range. Four participants were taught to mand for four reinforcing items using both communication modalities, in an alternating treatments design. Three of four participants demonstrated criterion performance across all four mands using P.E.C.S. first. Two of those three participants later demonstrated criterion performance for the mands using manual sign. The fourth participant was removed from the study during training due to illness, but her progress indicated greater acquisition with P.E.C.S. Generalization probes conducted at participants' respective residences showed that three participants demonstrated generalization across settings using P.E.C.S., and two participants demonstrated generalization across settings using manual sign. Participants were also more likely to mand for reinforcing items not present using P.E.C.S. than using manual sign.     

Comparison of computer based instruction to behavior skills training for teaching staff implementation of discrete-trial instruction with an adult with autism

In the current study, behavior skills training (BST) is compared to a computer based training package for teaching discrete trial instruction to staff, teaching an adult with autism. The computer based training package consisted of instructions, video modeling and feedback. BST consisted of instructions, modeling, rehearsal and feedback. Following training, participants were evaluated in terms of their accuracy on completing critical skills for running a discrete trial program. Six participants completed training; three received behavior skills training and three received the computer based training. Participants in the BST group performed better overall after training and during six week probes than those in the computer based training group. There were differences across both groups between research assistant and natural environment competency levels.     

Manipulating establishing operations to promote initiations toward peers in children with autism

This study examined the effects of manipulating establishing operations on the frequency of initiations of three children with autism toward peers with autism. The EO targeted was deprivation of preferred edibles, and the target initiation was a mand for the preferred snack. A reversal design was used to assess the effects of the EO conditions on frequency of initiations. Results indicated that when the EO was absent, no spontaneous initiations toward the peer occurred. Two participants required training sessions with an adult to transfer initiations toward peers. Once the EO had been established and was present, the participants initiated mands for the snack. Results are discussed in terms of implications for the use of establishing operations in language training for children with autism.     

The Perception of Animacy in Young Children with Autism

Visual perception may be a developmental prerequisite to some types of social understanding. The ability to perceive social information given visual motion appears to develop early. However, children with autism have profound deficits in social cognitive function and may fail to see social motion in the same way that typically developing children do. We tested the hypothesis that children with autism fail to discriminate animate motion, using a novel paradigm involving simple geometric figures. The subjects were 23 children with autism (c.a. 70.7 mos.), 18 children with other developmental disabilities (c.a. 68.2 mos.), and 18 typically developing children (c.a. 46.4 mos.). Children saw two circles moving on a screen and were rewarded for identifying the one that moved as if animate. A control condition required children to identify the heavier of two objects. Children with autism initially showed a deficit in categorizing objects as animate (though no deficit on the control task), but showed no deficit in this ability after they had reached criterion in the training phase. These results are discussed in terms of the social orienting theory of autism, and the possibility that animacy perception might be preserved in autism, even if it is not used automatically.     

Differential impact of response effort within a response chain on use of mands in a student with autism

We investigated the effects of response effort on the use of mands during functional communication training (FCT) in a participant with autism. The number of links in a picture exchange response chain determined two levels of response effort. Each level was paired with a fixed ratio (FR3) schedule of reinforcement for aggression in a reversal design. Responding to either schedule produced access to a preferred item. The participant opted for the low effort mand while aggression decreased significantly. However, the high effort mand did not compete with the FR3 schedule for aggression. Results are discussed in terms of response effort within a response chain of a picture exchange system and competing ratio schedules for problem behavior during mand training.     

An experimental analysis of the effects of therapeutic horseback riding on the behavior of children with autism

The current study experimentally evaluated the effects of therapeutic horseback riding on the behavior of children with autism using a multiple baseline across participants design and a waitlist control group for comparison purposes. Participants were observed weekly in an after-school program during four center-based activities and during therapeutic horseback riding lessons. We also conducted intermittent probes of behavior at home. Therapeutic horseback riding did not produce systematic changes in affect, responding to others’ initiations, spontaneous initiations, off-task behavior, compliance, problem behavior, or performance on two standardized measures. Three of four participants’ posture improved during therapeutic horseback riding.