Association for Behavior Analysis International

This study replicates and extends previous research on the convergence of the Functional Assessment Interview Record for Parents Checklist (FAIR-P-CL) with all phases (descriptive, interpretive, verification, implementation and monitoring) of functional behavior assessment. The FAIR-P-CL is an indirect descriptive assessment that aims to define the target behavior, identify potential environmental factors that enable the target behavior, and identify maintaining consequences. To evaluate convergence, five children between three and five, who were referred for displaying disruptive behavior frequently in the home, were selected. A multiple baseline across participants was used to expose each participant to baseline, experimental functional analysis, intervention analysis, and intervention verification. Alternating treatment designs were used to evaluate changes in participant behavior across conditions during experimental functional and intervention analysis phases. Results indicated convergence of FAIR-P-CL data across all phases of the functional behavior assessment. This extends previous research regarding convergence of the phases of a functional behavior assessment (Lewis & Sugai, 1996; Yarbrough & Carr; 2000). Further research is underway to determine if the FAIR-P-CL is sensitive enough to identify appropriate function-based interventions with the absence of a verification phase. Results from the present study extend the utility of indirect functional behavior checklists.

Children with autism often have difficulty making eye contact, imitating motor movements, and using vocalizations to request. Research has found that increasing motivation by using child choice, interspersal of acquisition and maintenance tasks, reinforcing attempts, and delivering natural reinforcers in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) treatment programs increase the acquisition time to learn new skills. Nevertheless, some children are qualified as "nonresponders" to these methods due to lack of interest for objects or progress continues to be slow. In this study, 5 children with autism who were receiving ABA intensive treatment, participated in a 2 month intervention embedded into their current treatment program. The intervention consisted of two 15-minute treatment intervals within their regular 4-hour ABA session. The 15-minute intervals consisted of use of sensorimotor play activities in combination with motivational procedures to increase critical skill areas of joint attention, motor imitation, engagement time, and unprompted vocal requests in the context of sensorimotor play. Results indicate that the use of sensorimotor play activities in combination with motivational procedures assisted in rapidly increasing core skills. The results from this study suggest that sensorimotor play may be an important consideration for children with autism of various functioning levels to acquire and generalize core skills at a faster rate.

To increase compliant behavior in children who were unresponsive to traditional time-out (TO) procedures, improve parent-child interaction, and increase parental satisfaction, deferred time-out (DTO) strategies have been implemented in clinical settings (Warzak & Floress, 2009). Original studies describe DTO as a process initiated following a parent TO training procedure for children who were resistant to traditional forms of TO. Results indicated that the DTO strategy significantly reduces TO latency without the need for put-backs or other physical means to gain time-out compliance. In addition to being more time consuming and less effective, these physical strategies are less favorable to caregivers than a solution such as DTO (Kazdin, 1980). Current participants include children between two and seven, who display attention-maintained noncompliance and other minor disruptive behavior. A multiple baseline across participants with a primary dependent variable of response latency for time-out and secondary dependent variables of disruptive behavior (noncompliance, aggression and inappropriate vocalizations) was used. Social validity data will also be reported. The current paper replicates and extends the results of previous evaluations by determining the functional applications of DTO and adding to the standard behavioral strategy of TO.