Association for Behavior Analysis International

Vocal Stereotypy has been reported to occur in an average of 54% ofindividuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnosis (Chebli, Martin, and Lanovaz, 2016). This behavior can take many forms such as repetitive vocalizations, sounds, noises, babbles, or singing that are not directly related to the current context or activity, and can interfere with functional communication and hinder opportunities for social engagement (Ahearn, Clark, and MacDonald, 2007).. The current study examined the use of a differential consequences procedure to reduce vocal stereotypies in a six-year-old boy with ASD . In Phase 1 of this study, a watch on the child’s wrist was established as a discriminative stimulus (SD) that indicated availability of reinforcement contingent on the absence of vocal stereotypy during treatment sessions. Once control over vocal stereotypy in the treatment condition (wearing the watch) was established, Phase 2 of the study was implemented in which procedures to transfer control over stereotypy across people, settings, and activities were implemented. A third experimental phase was then conducted in which the participant was taught to self-monitor frequency of vocal stereotypy and self-deliver reinforcement using a token system. Data indicate that the differential reinforcement procedures implemented in this study were effective in reducing frequency of vocal stereotypy for this participant across all conditions . Discussion the study’s results will focus on social implications, limitations of the current study, and areas for future research.

Functional analysis procedures emphasize identifying the function of problem behaviors by observing differential responding as a result of environmental manipulations. However, each instance of severe problem behavior (SPB) is potentially dangerous. Research on precursors has been limited, however, two methods of identifying precursors have been described, and there is some evidence that interventions targeting precursors can prevent SPB occurrence. One method used to identify precursors is a correlational analysis. However, results are correlational and only indicate a temporal relation between the precursor and SPB. In order for a behavior to be a precursor to SPB, it must also have a functional relation (Fritz et al., 2013). The current study includes both methods described above and was completed with an 8-year-old male with autism who engaged in precursor behavior (negative vocalizations, stomping, and/or dropping to the floor from a standing or seated position) and SPB (self-injury and disruption). Interviews with caregivers and descriptive assessments were conducted to identify precursor and SPB. An experimental analysis of precursors was conducted to demonstrate that precursor and SPB fall within the same functional response class. During test conditions, the therapist systematically delivered social consequences for (1) precursor behavior or (2) SPB. During control conditions, the client had noncontingent access to highly preferred toys and adult attention. Results from the experimental analysis of precursors and the correlational analysis indicated that precursor behaviors reliably preceded SPB, the occurrence of SPB diminished if reinforcement was delivered for precursor behavior, and the behaviors were part of the same functional response class.

The purpose of this study is to determine if there is a difference in mand acquisition in learners with Autism and other language delays when they are taught to mand using an echoic prompt versus an intraverbal plus echoic prompt. An alternating treatments design was used to compare the rate of mand acquisition between the two different teaching procedures. This study was completed in the past with three participants that showed slower acquisition when mands were taught using the intraverbal plus echoic prompt. The study is being replicated this year with three more participants. These participants are showing mixed results presently. The parameters of mand instruction will be analyzed and discussed concerning important variables to consider during teaching. Motivating operations, prompt levels with early learners versus a learner that has had many mands previously acquired, and finally the use of the intraverbal prompt with instruction for a student that has previously only been taught using echoic prompting only are important variables to analyze with regards to mand instruction.

Preference assessments are frequently used to determine which items may function as reinforcers during skill acquisition programs for clients with autism. Numerous studies have found that edibles tend to outrank leisure activities when they are included together in preference assessments (DeLeon et.al., 1997, Bojack & Carr, 1999, Fahmie, et.al., 2015). If so, the reinforcing potential of leisure items may be obscured by the presence of edible items in the same assessment. In recent years, with advances in technology, there are a wider variety of leisure items available, such as tablets and cell phones. As a result, some children may show a greater preference for technological leisure items with respect to food items during preference assessment. To date, only one study has included screen-based media in assessments that compare edible and leisure items (Conine & Vollmer, 2018). The present study replicated Conine and Vollmer with 16 subjects with autism in Italy. Results showed that for 44% of participants a leisure item ranked above all edible items, and for 28% leisure items displaced all edible items. Thus, our study replicates the results of Conine and Vollmer and suggests that these findings have generality across cultures.

?Study Objectives?The purpose of this study is to examine toilet training and its effects in young autistic children without intellectual impairment. Despite being able to urinate in the toilet for the target child, the use of urine and diaper continued until 5 years old. So we gave consultation to parents and a token - economy to the boy. Subject: A boy with autism spectrum without intellectual impairment, is 5 years old, belong to kindergarten. Urination at the toilet was possible at the age of 3, but parents used diapers as he wanted, even after that. Before the intervention it confirmed to the attending physician that there was no physical abnormality about excretion. Target behavior: To urinate in the toilet Measure: Number of remains urine except toilet Intervention scenes: The time from getting up after getting up to the entrance at home and staying at the kindergarten was targeted. Generalization: The generalization setting was ranging from after kindergarten to going to bed. Procedure: We explained his parents that they continued to use the diaper according to the child's requirements, it increased his behavior to urinate at other place except toilet. We said to the boy, (1) time of morning at home (2) in the morning at kindergarten (3) kindergarten in the afternoon, If he was able to urinate in the toilet without being urinated all their period, he got a hero card. It was also sounded an alarm tone every 45 minutes to guide the toilet. ?Results and Discussion? On baseline, no success was observed for more than 2 days, but from the 6th day of intervention success was successful for 10 days. Given a hero card, the child was joyfully jumped and had the opportunity to voluntarily go to the toilet. There was no enuresis even during the evening hours at home in the generalization setting. In autistic children with excessively restricted or persistent interests and high language ability, parents are involved in the child's claims and sometimes maintain inappropriate life habits. Consultation to parents and motivation for children are important for obtaining appropriate ADL.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) frequently emit problem behaviors (PB). When left untreated, they are associated with consequences such as social exclusion, limiting learning, and potential harm to the child. However, many families have limited access to effective interventions, such as services based on behavior analysis, due to long waiting lists for public services, geographic isolation, and costs for obtaining services from the private sector. Web-based training for parents can be a useful tool to ensure early access to best practices for reducing PB in children with autism. The effectiveness of a web-based training intervention for decreasing childrens’ PB and increasing modifying parenting practices was assessed using a randomized waitlist design. Forty-seven parents of children with ASD were recruited for this study. Analyses using randomisation tests indicate a significant difference in the change of score for the integrity of the treatment (Mexp.= 1.07; Mwait.= -1.21; p< 0.01), as well as, a marginally significant difference for PB frequency (Mexp.= -12.86; Mwait.= -5.71; p = 0.063) and severity (Mexp.= -8.71; Mwait.= -2.54; p = 0.065). Results for the eight and twelve-week post-tests will also be presented. This study contributes to the knowledge regarding technology as an inexpensive and accessible tool to support families for the management of PB of children with ASD. Limits and future directions will be presented.

Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) do not reliably respond when their names are called. As such, response to name has become diagnostic for ASD and has been indicated as a critical target for early intervention. The current study extends previous research by evaluating an abbreviated assessment and treatment model for response to name with six children with ASD. Results indicate that tangible reinforcement procedures can produce rapid increases in discriminated response to name, often without the addition of response prompts. After treatment, response to name was maintained at lean schedules of tangible reinforcement for all participants. Caregiver training was also conducted after treatment, and our assessment procedures discriminated between children who did and did not require intervention for response to name. We also used a social screening condition with all participants to assess for deficits and response to name, and to determine whether necessary treatment conditions can be predicted based on performance during screening. The results of this study have implications for clinical practice in terms of efficient approaches to treatment, and methods of programming for generalization, maintenance, and caregiver training.

Researchers have widely adopted technology to provide intervention and to teach skills to preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Using technology has the advantage of being accessible, and predictable, and these devices often function as reinforcing consequences. With the advance of science and the arrival of new types of technology, the number of studies on this topic has grown and it is difficult for researchers to know what has been done and what has not. This systematic review of studies from 1995 to 2018 therefore aims to provide a current state of the literature and guide future research on the subject. Our systematic review included 168 studies, which were categorized according to their study design, number of participants, settings, types of technology, devices, skills targeted and level of assistance. Our results recommended future studies to explore other types of technologies than speech-generating devices (SGD) and video modeling as they have been getting the most attention up until now. As for the methodology of the studies, our result indicated a need of more group studies following single-cases ones as well as a better isolation of the technology from human interventions to establish a greater conclusion on their efficiency.

The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is a protocol designed to teach individuals with limited or no communication skills to communicate using pictures. Often, children with Autism display communication deficits at a very young age. Previous studies have shown that intervention in combination with parent training is essential for teaching and generalizing novel skills. The purpose of this poster is to summarize the effects of discrete trial teaching combined with parent training when teaching functional communication in an applied setting. The Board Certified Behavior Analyst used the Picture Exchange Communication System protocol to teach a nonverbal three-year-old child with Autism across a seven month period of intervention. The results demonstrated that the child’s spontaneous communication skills increased during intervention, however acquisition rate increased when parent training was utilized, as well. As a result, the client completed Phase III in the Picture Exchange Communication System protocol. Therefore, increased acquisition was observed when parent-implemented Picture Exchange Communication System training was combined with discrete trial learning during in-home Applied Behavior Analysis sessions.

A personal narrative intervention package was used to teach macrostructure within participant-generated personal narratives. The effects of the personal narrative intervention package were assessed using a combined single-subject, multiple-baseline, and an A-B-A-B design across four adults with ASD and ID. During the initial baseline phase, participants included few macrostructure elements in their personal narratives. When the intervention package was introduced, there was an immediate increase in the number of macrostructure components included in participant-generated personal narratives. A withdrawal of the intervention yielded results similar to those of baseline. Following the reintroduction of the intervention, macrostructure scores immediately increased back to levels similar to those of the initial intervention. The skills taught to participants were maintained across three weeks post-intervention, however, generalization was not demonstrated. This personal narrative intervention package allowed adults with ASD and ID to share personal stories and more meaningful social experiences with others.

Functional communication training (FCT) outcomes are generally vulnerable to relapse evoked by treatment challenges. Basic and applied experiments have suggested that reinforced variability may be more resistant to change than reinforced repetition. Lag schedules of reinforcement can increase variability in play skills, feeding, and verbal behavior such as tacts, intraverbals, and selection-based or topography-based manding. Therefore, reinforcing mand variability during FCT with lag schedules may mitigate recurrence of challenging behavior by strengthening the persistence of manding during challenges to treatment such as a sudden increase in response effort. The current study evaluated potential recurrence mitigating effects of lag schedules during FCT by comparing challenging behavior and manding in an effort challenge preceded by a Lag 0 or Lag 2 schedule of reinforcement in a boy with autism and challenging behavior. We replicated experimental control over mand variability and challenging behavior demonstrated in prior studies but found no benefit of reinforcing mand variability in FCT prior to the effort challenge. Implications for future research are discussed.

Empirical preference assessments enable practitioners to predict which items or activities will function as reinforcers for children with disabilities. For example, practitioners can use a single stimulus preference assessment (SS-SPA) to identify preferred stimuli by repeatedly presenting the learner with stimuli singly and measuring approach or engagement. However, the SS-SPA may be incompatible with many clinical or educational environments due to its lengthy administration time and its utility in young children is not well understood. Therefore, the current study examined an abbreviated engagement-based version of the SS-SPA in two young children with development disorders and evaluated the reinforcing effects of preferred and nonpreferred stimuli in a concurrent operants reinforcer assessment. We discontinued the study for one participant after completing the preference assessment. Our results suggest that a single administration of an engagement-based single stimulus preference assessment can identify preferred stimuli in young children with developmental disorders. We also found that the Reinforcer Assessment for Individuals with Severe Disabilities questionnaire yielded more accurate predictions about reinforcing stimuli relative to our empirical preference assessment. We cautiously conclude that repeated administration of the engagement-based SS-SPA may be necessary to obtain differentiated data and we discuss some of the nuances of conducting reinforcer assessments that measure “in-square” behavior which seem to have received little or no discussion in the literature.

Early intensive behavioral intervention programs often use identity-matching procedures to teach children with autism basic discriminative and relational performances. However, teaching visual discriminations to some children with autism may be challenging when common methods of teaching identity matching have failed. In the current study, we manipulated the tactile features of stimuli to increase the discriminability between identical matching objects for two children with autism. We used an adapted-alternating-treatments design within a concurrent multiple baseline design across sets of targets to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of nested versus un-nested matching stimuli. Nested stimuli were objects in which the participant could place the identical matching stimulus inside the comparison stimulus when presented in an array of two; whereas, the participant placed the identical un-nested matching stimulus next to the comparison stimulus. The overall results showed that participants acquired nested targets in fewer sessions and trials compared to un-nested targets. Findings from this study suggest that tactile manipulation of stimuli may facilitate the acquisition of identity matching for children with autism with a history of failed attempts to teach matching using common teaching procedures.

Greater attention has been on children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as well as those with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in applied research. The current study evaluated the effects of parent-mediated Social StoryTM intervention on social interaction of three 3- to 7-year-old Korean American (KA) children with ASD. Using multiple baseline design across subjects, the three children and their parents read stories written in their preferred language that illustrated four social play behaviors: appropriate verbal/nonverbal initiations and responses. During intervention, parents and children read the stories and were observed during a 10-min play at home with a designated set of toys. During baseline, generalization with researcher, and follow-up, social stories were not read prior to the 10-min play. Based on a visual analysis and percentage of non-overlapping data (PND), the three children showed improvement in their responses to adults’ initiations as well as in their initiations and affects after reading the Social StoryTM, although PND for initiations were relatively low in two children. The findings suggest that training KA parents of children with ASD to implement the Social StoryTM intervention positively impact children’s social interaction when Social StoriesTM reflect their home language and culture.

Needle phobias are common in children and adults worldwide. One effective intervention for this phobia is exposure therapy where a participant is gradually exposed to increasing levels of the fear-evoking stimulus while differential reinforcement is applied. This intervention, however, may be difficult to implement with some medical procedures as it may be difficult to obtain unfettered access to medical facilities and equipment for the purposes of exposure. Virtual reality may overcome these obstacles. In this investigation we developed a low-cost virtual reality-based exposure therapy which was used with an adult male with autism spectrum disorder and a history of extreme needle phobia. The intervention quickly eliminated the phobia and the effects were generalized across settings, behaviors, and time.

Errorless learning techniques teach skills under dense schedules of reinforcement while minimizing error pattern development. Undesirable outcomes of such techniques include prompt dependency. Paradoxically, physical prompting and error correction may be aversive students, making the relationship between prompting and skill acquisition complex. The purpose of this study was to utilize within-session prompt fading paired with verbal reprimands to overcome prompt dependency in an individual with Autism learning sign language using a multiple baseline design. During phase 1, all correct responses resulted in access to the functional reinforcer; incorrect responses resulted in error correction (full physical prompting). During phase 2, the participant was required to move through the prompting hierarchy until independence was achieved within each trial. Correct prompted responses resulted in verbal praise and the presentation of the next discriminative stimuli; correct independent responses resulted in access to the functional reinforcer. All incorrect responses resulted in a verbal reprimand (that’s not right!) followed by a requirement to repeat the trial. Generalization was assessed across settings and instructors. Procedures were replicated for an additional communicative response. IOA was conducted for 33% of sessions with a mean agreement of 100%. Results showed the intervention was highly effective in producing skill acquisition.

Error correction is one of the most common procedures used in early behavioral intervention programs for children with autism. Effective error-correction procedures are critical to facilitate task acquisition and typically include a prompt for learners to make a correct response. A variety of prompts during error correction have been reported, such as vocal model (e.g., Kodak et al., 2016) and gestural prompt (Leaf et al., 2016). However, given prompting procedures may have differential effects (e.g., Finkel & Williams, 2001; Ingvarsson & Hollobaugh, 2011), error correction with different prompts warrants investigation. The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of error-correction procedures with an echoic or a tact prompt on the acquisition of an intraverbal skill of three children with autism. When an error occurs, the instructor will either deliver an echoic model or a tact prompt for the participants to make a correct response. A multiple baseline design with embedded alternating treatments is used to detect differential effects of the two error-correction procedures. The results may provide guidance for effective use of prompts during error correction for children with autism in an early behavioral intervention setting. Data collection will be completed in February 2019.

For individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), the area of feeding can be a challenge for many. Issues with feeding can range from skill deficits related to consumption, food selectivity, and prior traumatic experiences. Specifically, teaching one to safely consume a broader variety of foods and textures is critical to increase the individual’s adaptive repertoire, and as a result provides lifelong opportunity for social enrichment during mealtimes. The goal of the present study was to teach a child with ASD to learn self-pacing, while engaging in independent feeding. Extra-stimulus prompting and systematic manipulation of bite amount were used to teach the participant to pace themselves and consume an age-appropriate amount of food during each bite. The stimulus was then faded to a common plate used at home and school, and the number of bites available on the plate was gradually increased. Results indicate that fading the stimulus, as well as, manipulation of the amount during bites was successful in teaching a child to consume a safe and appropriate number of sequential bites while self-feeding.

Using engineering technologies to quantify interpersonal interactions could provide another perspective for the social intervention in children with autism. This pilot study aimed to evaluate the small-group interactions between two typically developing children (age 6, respectively) and two adults using the motion capture system (MCS). This experiment consisted of a single session including testing phases and interaction phases. In testing phases (baseline, post 1, and post 2), the children and the adults played a kind of volleyball which required to toss a balloon toward each other, wearing a specialized cap which acquires the information about head position. The children freely moved around and touched the balloon in the circle with a diameter of approximately four meters while the adults were pinned in the predetermined position. Results from testing phases showed that the rate of children’s engagement to the adult who intended to reinforce their social-communicative responses in interaction phases consistently increased (Fig. 1). Our concern is whether we could observe a correlation between the number of interactions such as toss a balloon and the tripartite interpersonal distance calculated from information of head positions (the MCS data is under analysis).

The purpose of the current study was to increase simple and complex leisure item engagement across a variety of non-electronic items. An individual with autism, who engaged with an iPad to the exclusion of other leisure activities, participated. Response restriction (RR) preference assessments were conducted before, during, and following training to determine whether shifts in response allocation emerged. A multiple baseline across items design was used. We assessed leisure item training, including prompting and differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA), for increasing simple and complex forms of item engagement. Prompting alone was sufficient in increasing simple engagement to criterion levels. However, the addition of DRA was required to increase complex engagement. Increases in engagement occurred with an untrained leisure item. Shifts in response allocation from iPad to non-electronic leisure items occurred in post-training RR assessments. Reliability was collected in 31% of sessions and averaged 97%.

Typically, behavior analysts assess for augmentative or alternative communication systems by analyzing a client’s vocal-verbal behavior, fine and gross motor skills, visual discrimination and selection skills, and behavioral barriers (Valentino, et al., 2018; Sundberg, 1993). However, little research exists that establishes criteria or decision protocol for specific device selection, once the need has been determined. The Essential for Living (EFL) curriculum and assessment is a “comprehensive functional, life skills curriculum, assessment, and skill-tracking instrument designed for learners with moderate to severe disabilities and limited skill repertoires” (McGreevy, Fry, & Cornwall, 2014, p. 1). The assessment initiates a vocal-verbal intake of the client and provides clear categories of vocal profiles and speaker behavior to assess the need for alternative or augmentative communication systems. We used the EFL to specifically categorize the vocal-verbal and communication skills of 21 students, across three life-skills classrooms, and found that, of the 12 students who were eligible for or using devices, seven did not meet criteria for an effective, alternative method of speaking. Novel systems that lowered the response effort to request specific items were then introduced to those students, initially eliminating the need for a two-hit response to access preferred items. The result was a steady increase in engagement, independence and accuracy.

The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous research on pictorial-paired-stimulus (PS) preference assessments with social stimuli by assessing the generality of outcomes across multiple reinforcer assessments. A 16-year-old boy with autism participated. Following implementation of the PS assessment, highly preferred (HP) and less preferred (LP) attention forms were evaluated in two subsequent reinforcer assessments. First, we conducted a concurrent-operant arrangement in a reversal design, using a simple arbitrary response (i.e., target touch). Responding was allocated to the HP relative to the LP and control options; however, responding was allocated to the LP relative to control when the HP option was no longer available. Second, we conducted a single-operant arrangement in a multielement design, using a more complex arbitrary task (i.e., 8-step LEGO structures). Criterion performance was achieved only when the HP item was contingently delivered. Reliability was calculated for 33% of sessions and agreement averaged 96%.

The current study seeks to establish whether learning ability and task difficulty interact to affect the rate of task acquisition for children with autism spectrum disorder in an early intensive behavioural intervention (EIBI) program. To do so, training tasks selected from the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills-Revised that were previously categorized into learning ability levels will be taught to three children recruited from an EIBI program. For each child, three training tasks will be selected as Matched, Mismatched Above, and Mismatched Below the child’s current learning ability level and will be taught using discrete trial teaching methods. Within-subject and between-subject comparisons will be conducted to evaluate acquisition rates across training tasks. Results from this study may provide clinicians with pertinent information to create more efficient and individualized training procedures for children enrolled in EIBI programs, who are subject to increasing waitlists and delays in services.

The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effects of reinforcer magnitude on preference for response-reinforcer arrangements. A 16-year-old boy with autism participated in the study. Within each experimental phase, the participant was provided a choice among different response-reinforcer arrangements. The continuous arrangement consisted of completing an entire academic task followed by continuous reinforcer access, the discontinuous arrangement consisted of dividing the academic task and reinforcer access into several smaller units, and the control condition consisted of completing an academic task without accessing reinforcement. The magnitude of reinforcement in the continuous arrangement was manipulated across experimental phases by providing shorter duration of access to the reinforcer. With the exception of one experimental phase, the participant preferred the continuous arrangement despite that it resulted in an 80% reduction in the total duration of access to the reinforcer. These results suggest that continuity of access to a reinforcer may be an important variable influencing preference for response-reinforcer arrangements.

The emergence of intraverbals is mainly studied through procedures that involve differential reinforcement such as tact training and listener training. However, another procedure called the ‘Stimulus Pairing Observation Procedure’ (SPOP) emerged as an alternative to verify the emergence of verbal repertoires. This procedure consists of observation of stimuli presented contiguously, where the only response required is the observation and does not involve differential reinforcement of any responses. Studies have shown that verbal operants can be established through SPOP, and have also emphasized the role of echoic behavior as an intermediator in the emergence of tact, listener, and intraverbal responses. This study compared the efficacy of the SPOP with and without requirement of echoic response in the emergence of intraverbals in three children with autism spectrum disorder, with a multiple probe design with alternating treatment. The study consisted of seven phases: 1) Evaluation of syllable articulation; 2) Initial Intraverbal Probe; 3) Tact Training; 4) Baseline; 5) Implementation of treatments; 6) Generalization test; 7) Maintenance test. Results showed the efficacy of SPOP in intraverbal acquisition and the mediator role of the echoic behavior. Effects of training and testing without reinforcement and task structure are discussed.

One of the most common behavioral treatments for problem behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is functional communication training (FCT; Tiger, Hanley, & Bruzek, 2008). Studies have shown FCT to be an effective treatment, even when training is delivered via telehealth (Lindgren et al., 2016). Despite numerous studies showing reductions in problem behavior in the training context, little research has been conducted on response generalization or collateral effects of FCT outside of the training context. Using a variety of standardized ratings scales to measure collateral effects, this poster presents findings from a multi-site, large-n study on FCT for young children with autism using telehealth. Thirty-four children with ASD who responded to FCT were assessed prior to and immediately following treatment. The results suggest that there is some collateral benefit related to targeted and nontargeted behaviors outside of the training context for some, but not all participants. Implications on clinical practice and future research will be discussed.

Due to the way funding for disability is distributed in Australia, many of the clients we provide services to have a limited pool of funding for the year, so optimising service delivery, has been crucial. Our service provides home-based behaviour support consultation, to help carers learn how to identify the function of a behaviour, decide what to teach the individual, and then how to teach. We work with the client, and their carers, to assess and observe the behaviour, gather baseline data, develop a comprehensive Positive Behaviour Support Plan, and provide ongoing consulting services using Behaviour Skills Training to coach carers to implement strategies. Sessions are supplemented with information sheets on various topics including reinforcement, task analyses, and data collection. We provided this service for seven clients, aged 9 - 23, diagnosed with Autism and Intellectual Disability, in their homes, schools, and workplaces, in Sydney, Australia. Data indicate that over the course of 6 months, challenging behaviour decreased, while skills taught to replace the behaviour increased. Limitations with this study include lack of social validity data, and lack of observation of generalisation in multiple environments. Future directions include working with carers to enhance maintenance and generalisation.

The practice of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) in the treatment of children with autism has been widely accepted as an empirically validated treatment, therefore many health insurance carriers now provide ABA treatment for their members diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. As more medical insurance providers adopt the new American Medical Association category I CPT codes for billing ABA therapy services or “adaptive behavior services,” an examination of the efficiency of data collection methods is particularly emphasized given the requirement for qualified health professionals (QHP) to be “face to face” with the client or family. A move toward more direct services from a BCBA or BCaBA encourages ABA providers to look toward more efficient modalities to examine behavior data, learner prompting data and specifically skill acquisition data. This study seeks to discuss and examine trials to mastery data, prompt data and duration to mastery data between a paper and pen data collection system verses a digital data collection system. Results are discussed in relation to learner outcomes along with their organizational and clinical implications. Moreover, study limitations and recommendations for future studies of learner outcomes provided by insurance funded ABA programs are discussed.

Bruxism otherwise known as excessive teeth grinding can have serious health concerns. Individuals who engage in bruxism can cause irreversible damage to their teeth, gums, and bones. This case study included a six-year-old female diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. The procedure used to reduce bruxism included positive punishment and took place in a clinical setting. Generalization with parents and maintenance measures were collected. As a result of the punishment procedure there was a decrease in teeth grinding. Positive punishment procedures may have beneficial implications on bruxism in a clinical setting.

Military families relocate three times more often then nonmilitary families. This is concerning for military families who have children diagnosed with ASD due to inconsistencies faced relocation such as a delay in services and no continuity of care. The current study aims to expand on previous research relating to barriers of military families who have children with ASD following relocation and identify potential causes of delays in services. An online survey methodology to obtain information from 25 military caregivers with children diagnosed with ASD and 20 ABA providers. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze caregiver demographics and service delivery questions. Caregiver reports were consistent with current research on barriers military families face the following relocation. Based on caregiver reports delays in services can be contributed to provider waitlists lasting one to six months, obtaining a new referral taking one week to two or more months, and the intake process including a new assessment.

Child feeding problems is a term used to describe dysfunctional childhood feeding. Children with eating problems show a wide variety of behaviors at mealtime. Feeding problems can range from mild to severe. The typical development in children refers to the acquisition of various skills that characterize children of similar ages within the same culture. These characteristics are severely deficient or not found in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The ASD is a condition characterized by problems in different areas such as social interaction, communication, stereotyped patterns of behavior, as well as motor delays that lead to eating or swallowing problems. Interventions based on applied behavior analysis (ABA) have shown to be effective in the modification and resolution of behavioral problems in children with typical development and ASD. Therefore, the purpose of the present project is to identify and modify the behavior problems related to problems of food and basic self-care through an intervention based on ABA in Mexico. These interventions will be probed in children with typical development and ASD.

Children with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often engage in repetitive behaviours similar to those seen in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Recent research supports the use of a manualized Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) treatment package to treat these obsessive-compulsive behaviours (OCBs) in children (ages 7 to 12 years) with high functioning ASD (Vause et al., 2018). This package adapted traditional CBT to meet the unique needs of children with ASD (e.g., increased use of visuals, highly repetitive, a protracted cognitive component). However, there are limited studies that included extended follow-up. The current study evaluated treatment outcomes, five to eight years after the children received nine sessions of group CBT to treat their OCBs. Standardized (i.e., Repetitive Behavior Scale–Revised - Compulsive, Ritualistic, and Sameness subscales) and behavior specific parent-report questionnaires between baseline, post-treatment, and five to eight years following treatment were compared. Results from the 13 participants showed a substantial reduction in OCBs between pre-test and follow-up as well as no significant difference between post-test and follow-up. Qualitative data collection is ongoing. Future implications and limitation of these results will be discussed.

Although a general model for conducting functional analyses (FAs) exists, modifications are often necessary. Hagopian, Rooker, Jessel, and DeLeon (2013) evaluated FAs for 176 cases and noted that modifications classified as antecedent, consequent, and/or design were often conducted when initial results were inconclusive. We describe an antecedent-based modification made during the FA of problem behavior for a 14-year-old boy. Results from the standard FA suggested that his behavior was maintained by automatic reinforcement. However, anecdotal observations and parental report indicated that his behavior may also be maintained by access to attention and preferred items. Therefore, we modified the FA to be more representative of his home environment where problem behavior often started when he was alone. In the modified FA, each test condition began with him alone in a room. Contingent on problem behavior, a therapist entered the room and delivered various consequences (i.e., attention or access to a preferred toy) or he was left alone (i.e., in the alone condition). Results of the modified FA indicated that his problem behavior was sensitive to both automatic reinforcement and attention. A treatment consisting of noncontingent attention, functional communication, and competing stimuli was effective in reducing his problem behavior.

In this translational study of behavioral resurgence, a 16-year-old young man with autism received small pieces of a preferred snack upon clicking moving objects on a computer screen. One object was designated as the target response (TR) and clicking this was reinforced during an establishment phase. Two objects were designated as the alternative responses (AR1 and AR2) and clicking these was reinforced during the elimination phase as follows: in the serial condition AR1 was reinforced for several sessions, and then AR2 was reinforced for several sessions. In the alternating condition, the object designated for reinforcement alternated each session. Elimination phases were followed by a resurgence test wherein no reinforcement was delivered. Data collection was automated by the computer program, and all analyses and calculations were verified by the second author. Each condition was completed twice, yielding two comparisons. In the first comparison, there was more complete elimination of the target response in the serial condition and greater resurgence in the alternating condition. These outcomes were not replicated in the second comparison. This failure to replicate may be accounted for by repeated exposure to the extinction condition. Extensions and methodological considerations will be discussed.

Considering the importance of teaching verbal repertoires to children with ASD, mainly recombinative repertoires, the present study consisted of the systematic replication of a study, using two 3x3 matrices formed by nouns and verbs. Two children diagnosed with autism participated of the study, and a non-concurrent multiple baseline design was implemented between participants. The independent variable was the training in matrix, which consisted in the training of the three diagonal relations of the matrix, and the dependent variable was the percentage of correct answers in the matrix test, which verified the emergence of the relations of autoclitic tacts (noun and verb) with the six stimuli not involved in directly trained relations; and the emergence of relations involving the nine elements of the second matrix for which there was no training. The study consisted of the following phases: 1) baseline; 2) diagonal matrix training; 3) training matrix test; 4) generalization matrix test; 5) maintenance test and 5) direct teaching of relations that did not emerge. The results showed that the training in the matrix was effective for the establishment of autoclitic tacts for the participants of the present study. Points related to stimulus control are discussed in the study.

Investigation of physiological correlates of behavioral variability may help improve understanding of differences in effects of reinforcement across contexts and individuals. Two students with autism at a special education residential school wore wireless wristbands that monitored electrodermal activity (EDA) as they completed a free-operant tabletop task which entailed placing a ball in one of two Montessori object-permanence boxes. Small pieces of a preferred snack were delivered according to concurrent schedules (FR 1/EXT), and unsignaled, unpredictable contingency changes were effected over the course of 48-66 sessions, sometimes within the same day. We evaluated relations between response allocation, EDA level (µS), and coefficient of variation (CV) in EDA. For both participants, same-day contingency reversals resulted consistently in lower levels of EDA and decreased allocation of responding to the reinforced alternative, as compared to comparable sessions without a same-day contingency reversal. Other analyses, however, did not show systematic relations between experimental manipulations and measures of EDA. Interobserver agreement (IOA) was calculated for 53% of sessions by dividing the total frequency of responses recorded by the first observer by the total frequency of responses recorded by another observer. The average IOA calculated was 96%, with a range of 91%-100%. Methodological considerations and extensions will be discussed.

Self-injury and aggression are common behaviors observed in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (Kanne & Mazurek, 2010). These behaviors can cause serious harm to themselves and others as well as interfere with learning (Erickson, Srivorakiat, Wink, Pedapati, & Fitzpatrick, 2016). The present case study involves one individual being treated using variations of omnibus mand training combined with delay and denial tolerance teaching (Hanley, Jin, Banselow, & Hanratty, 2014). Data will be presented on frequency of aggressions and self-injury, as well as the duration of tantrum behavior. The data presented will be from January 1, 2018 through December 31, 2018. Approximately nine months of the data takes place after the intervention; the first three months take place before the intervention. There has been a decrease in all three behaviors, most notably in tantrum duration. Treatment and general strategies will be discussed. All phase changes throughout the course of treatment will also be discussed.

The reversibility is pointed out as a difficulty in teaching pronouns for children with autism, as in the case of "mine" and "yours", which may refer to the same object in the same situation, but the use of one or another depends from the speaker's perspective. Considering perspective-taking relations and their importance to the development of children with autism, the objective of this study was to investigate the establishment of listener and autoclitic tact with intraverbal control of possessive pronouns in children with autism through Discrete Trials Training. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline experimental design was implemented among three participants. The procedure consisted of the following phases: 1) baseline of listener and autoclitic tact with intraverbal control of possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his and her); 2) listener relations training; 3) tact relations training; and 4) randomized test of tact and listener behaviors. Results showed that the procedure used was effective in teaching tact and listener relations of possessive pronouns for all participants. It is discussed that the training of tact and listener have occurred separately can be a reason for the effectiveness of the procedure and the need for future studies in this area.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are at an elevated risk of becoming lost in otherwise mundane situations due to running away or wandering behaviors (Anderson et al., 2012). When children with ASD become lost it may be difficult for them to effectively and efficiently seek help from community helpers in a safe manner due to communication deficits and poor social skills (Dogan et al., 2017). The present study will use a multiple-baseline design to evaluate the effects of a behavioral skills training (BST) procedure to teach children with ASD how to identify when they are lost and how to seek help from confederate police officers in a center-based setting. Pretest and posttest generalization probes will be conducted to probe the participants’ interactions with different confederate police officers. BST will consist of teaching participants when to seek help and how to identify and communicate with a police officer. Proposed results anticipate that all children with ASD will increase their help seeking behaviors by asking a confederate police officer for help when lost during posttest in-situ generalization probes. Limitations and future research will be discussed.

Studying observational learning entails modeling contingencies for a child and subsequently testing whether the child learned. Researchers have identified a set of skills considered fundamental (called observational learning component skills) to establishing observational learning in children with autism. Attending to only a part of the contingency during observation opportunities, the stimulus modalities of contingencies modeled, observing an insufficient number of observation opportunities, and deficient component skills are some variables that may influence whether a child with autism will exhibit observational learning. In the current study, we initially sought to identify boundary conditions of observational learning in children with autism. We promoted attending to all parts of contingencies during observation opportunities, tested observational learning across four contingencies with different stimulus modalities, and developed an assessment to empirically identify the number of observation opportunities to model before testing. All children learned in baseline, albeit after experiencing a number of individualized observation opportunities beyond what would likely occur systematically in their home or school environment. Thus, we decided to identify a procedure that would lead to observational learning after a minimal number of observations of the same contingency. Teaching children to imitate the model’s behavior and engage in differential observing responses to the consequences the model experienced in observation opportunities was effective in teaching these children to leverage observational learning.

Relational Frame Theory (RFT) provides a contemporary account of human language learning that may have several applications within Applied Behavior Analysis. We reviewed the current state of RFT research that was published in major applied behavior analytic journals from 1990 through 2017. The review extends upon prior work by directly comparing the publication of empirical and non-empirical studies within both a stimulus equivalence and RFT account of language development. Our results show that the publication rate for both empirical and non-empirical articles has increased over this time; however, following 2003, the rate of increase for empirical articles has exceeded the rate of increase for non-empirical articles. Our results also show that the journals that have most frequently published research on RFT or equivalence are the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis and The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. These journals differ in that JABA has historically been more likely to publish empirical research, whereas TAVB has historically been more likely to publish non-empirical research. The presence of published studies across applied behavior analytic research along with overall rates of increase suggest that RFT and equivalence research is becoming increasingly prevalent and accepted within Applied Behavior Analysis.