Association for Behavior Analysis International

In the Sub Search Game, the player uses a mouse to move a submarine icon on a computer screen in order to retrieve underwater objects. The screen is divided vertically in half, with each half containing its own submarine, objects, and barriers. The player can switch between the half-screens at any point. Occasionally, according to concurrent VI VI schedules, retrieval results in the delivery of points via an on-screen counter. Retrieval may also produce loss of points but only on the left half of the screen. The sessions consisted of six 6-min components in which the reinforcer ratio varied as did the screen color. Punishers were delivered in half of the components on the left side of the screen. Half of the 20 players were female college students; the other half male. Figure 1 summarizes the results from one component of the game consisting of a 1:1 ratio of reinforcers. Punishers were delivered on the left side of the screen with the same frequency as reinforcers. Though males responded approximately 40 percent faster than females overall, the relative decrease in responding on the left screen (where punishers were presented as frequently as reinforcers were) was approximately the same.

The Sub Search computer game is a new behavior-analytic method for the measurement of gain/loss asymmetry in judgment and decision making. Alternative, cognitively-oriented methods are well-established. To date no study has compared the two types of method. This study examined the sunk cost fallacy, that is, the tendency to persevere in investing in a risky option when all prior investments have failed, in terms of loss aversion, that is, the tendency to prefer uncertain losses to sure losses. It did so by employing the scenario-based methods of the cognitive approach as well as the Sub Search game. Participants were 30 college students who completed two surveys, one measuring sunk cost in three dimensions (time, effort, and money) and the other loss aversion. In addition, participants played the Sub Search game. The data were analyzed to determine the predictive relations between the results from the two cognitively-oriented methods, , ACT score, age (see Table 1), and the relation between those results jointly and the results from the behavior-analytic method. Relations were most robust for money.

Students who are at-risk for reading require extra support with instruction and learning and have a greater chance of academic failure in the future. Thus, students who struggle with reading and the comprehension of text have limited background knowledge, lack the skills to connect with the text, and do not know how to read with a purpose. This study addressed these deficits through the use of a self-questioning strategy to increase comprehension performance. More specifically, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of student-generated self-questions on expository reading comprehension of fourth grade at-risk learners. The generalization of comprehension skills was also assessed.

Sufficient response-exemplar training has been used successfully to typically developing children to articulate several Norwegian words with difficult blends (Eikeseth S. & Nesset 2003). The present study extends and adapts these procedures for children with autism. One girl and 3 boys aged between 7 and 16 years in the autism spectrum participated in the study. Two of the children had a co-occurring diagnoses of apraxia. This study examined if sufficient-response-exemplar-training would improve articulation in children with autism. In addition to SRET, stimulus salience, shaping, chaining and supplementary prompts were also added to the intervention. A multiple baseline across behaviors (word sets targeted) design was used. Results showed improvement in articulating words and sounds in all three participants. Two word sets improved after training for one participant while for two participants training in one set had generalisation effects on other word sets and sounds. Intervention in the fourth participant has just begun. For 37% of probe sessions mean IOA was 91% for participant 1 and 100% for participants 2 and 3 for agreement on correct responses. IOA on treatment integrity was 85 - 100%.

Research has demonstrated that manual guidance is effective at teaching long response chains and can be faded systematically using graduated guidance. In contrast, clinical findings suggest that verbal prompts might be more difficult to fade than physical prompts, because learners might come to be dependent upon verbal instructions. However, empirical evaluations are scarce comparing the use of manual guidance and verbal prompts for the acquisition and then maintenance of long response chains. The purpose of this study is to evaluate if manual guidance, faded systematically using a time delay procedure, would result in faster acquisition and then maintenance compared to verbal prompts faded in the same way. A multi-element design is being used to compare the use of verbal prompts to teach operating a washing machine with the use of manual guidance to teach operating a dryer. A pretest assessment revealed low levels of accuracy with completing steps in each of the response chains. During intervention, verbal prompts and manual guidance were used and then faded using a progressive time delay procedure. We plan to continue this analysis by continuing to fade these prompts and replicating this study with new target responses.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often exhibit difficulties in interactive conversation. Previous researches suggest that they have difficulties to keep paying attention to the listener. This study examined the effect of video-feedback with iPad on non-verbal behavior in the social conversation setting. A boy (CA: 7;10, FSIQ: 80) with ASD participated in this study. As the procedure, the participant and a male experimenter talked together during the session (3 minutes). This study targeted two posture behavior during the conversation (looking toward the experimenter and retaining posture). This experiment consisted of four phases; baseline, video-feedback, probe-tests, and generalization-test. In the baseline, the experimenter gave no feedback to the child. In the video-feedback, the participant was given feedback with iPad at the end of session. The participant was required to watch the video of previous session via iPad. In the probe-tests, the procedure was the same as in baseline. Probe-tests were conducted 1week and 1month after the video-feedback phase. In generalization, the participant talked with a female experimenter. As result, the frequency of looking toward the experimenter and retaining posture increased in 1month probe-test and generalized across people. In this study, we suggest video-feedback is efficient to improve non-verbal behavior at the social conversation settings.

Although long-term use of psychotropics has been used to treat individuals with bipolar disorder and intellectual disabilities (ID), little research has been conducted to assess the interaction of psychotropics and environmental variables on challenging behavior in those with bipolar disorder and ID. In the present study, three participants: Ralph (SIB), 28 year old male, diagnosed with bipolar I disorder, severe ID, and autism spectrum disorder; Ben (SIB), 49 year old male, diagnosed with bipolar not otherwise specified (NOS), profound ID, and dysphasia; Kate (Refusal), 53 year old female, diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and moderate ID participated in experimental functional analysis (FA) to determine the function of each participant's challenging behavior. The Questions About Behavior form was administered at the time of each FA and one-hour direct observations were videotaped weekly. Two weeks after each medication change, another FA was conducted. All data were coded and analyzed using The Observer XT. Changes were observed for all participants although the changes observed were not uniform across participants (e.g., differences in either conditions in which behavior occurred versus frequency of behavior), which suggests function-based data collection would be helpful in the prescribing practices of psychotropics in individuals with bipolar and ID.

Problem behaviors of children with DD are often measured and assessed by direct observation of interaction between children and their parents. One of the most widely used direct observation coding systems is the Revised Family Observation Schedule (FOS-R III) (Sanders et al., 1996) using the 10 second interval coding. It is a very comprehensive measure, yet not cost-efficient because it is time-consuming to record behaviors and difficult to train observers. Therefore, cost-efficient direct observation system for children with DD is needed. The purpose of this study was to develop a direct observation checklist using the Likert scale that measures problem behaviors that are typically shown in DD population. Steps to develop the checklist were followed. First, a focus group interview was conducted with experts in assessing and treating severe problem behaviors and possible items were generated upon discussion based on FOS-R III. Second, reliability and validity of the checklist were examined using the data set of 52 pairs of children with DD (M=36, F=16) and their parents; child-parent interactions were videotaped for 20 minutes in 2 conditions: play (10 minutes) and instruction (10 minutes). Results showed acceptable level of internal consistency and high inter-rater reliability of the checklist. Concurrent validity of the checklist was observed via high correlations with the FOS-R III and the BPI-01. Few items that showed low inter-rater reliability or concurrent validity with FOS-R III were removed from the checklist. Discriminant validity was examined for 16 pairs of typically developing children (M=7, F=9) and their parents and their age matched children with DD (M=12, F=4) and their parents. Significant differences were found in most of childrens behaviors, especially in positive behaviors. However, parents showed differences only in affection, mood and tone of voice. Results showed good psychometrics properties of direct observation checklist. Since the checklist is developed in consideration of typically shown problem behaviors in DD population and cost-efficient, it may be useful in clinical settings that assess and treat problem behaviors in children with DD.

The current study investigated the effects of the Intensive Tact Instruction (ITI) on the emission of accurate vocal verbal operants for three elementary school students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Participants were selected from a self-contained district based classroom in the U.S. Participants included one seven-year-old female and two seven-year-old males. A non-concurrent time-lagged multiple baseline across participants design was used to identify a potential functional relation between the independent and dependent variables. The dependent variables for the study were the number of mands, tacts, and palilalias emitted during baseline sessions in the hallway, lunchtime, and free play areas. The independent variable was a mastery completion of ITI in which 100 daily tact learn units were additionally presented to the participant above his/her mean number of learn units delivered daily. Results showed that the number of tacts considerably increased and the number of palilalias decreased as the procedure of ITI progressed.

The main purpose of this study was to test the effects of the auditory matching procedure on the improvement of echoic responses and emergence of listener literacy for three kindergarten students diagnosed with developmental disabilities. The students were chosen from a self-contained, kindergarten special education classroom of a private, publicly-funded elementary school. A time-lagged multiple probe across participants design was employed to identify a possible functional relation between the dependent and independent variables. The dependent variables in the study were the numbers of full echoic responses and correct responses to the listener literacy probe trials emitted by the participants during probe sessions. The independent variable was the implementation of the basic auditory matching procedure using iPad in which the participants were required to match a target sound or word by pressing a button that emitted the correct response. Probe sessions were conducted prior to the onset of the study, as well as following the completion of the intervention. Results of the study indicate that the number of full echoic responses and correct listener literacy responses increased for all participants.

Children with language deficiencies are often able to speak and echo simple phrases, but lack clarity as the complexity increases. We replicated a previous study by Tarbox et al. (2009) in which a chaining procedure was used to teach more complex echoic phrases. A multiple-probe design was used. During intervention, the participant was able to earn one token for each correctly pronounced syllable, on a 10 token board. Probes of both previously mastered words and untaught words were done each session. Results suggest that a chaining procedure is a highly effective method for teaching clear, complex echoics. Our participant was able to master 20 echoics of multiple complexity ranging from 2 syllabus words to compound words.

The current study involves an experimental model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) using a group design with 16 verbally skilled participants without clinical diagnosis. Experiments 1 and 2 show a model of obsessive-compulsive disorder based on some functional relations established between instructions, a task of separating seeds and the non-verbal checking responses. They tested if instructions with specification of aversive or appetitive consequences could increase the percentage of checking responses compared to instructions without these specification consequences. In Experiment 1, five of the eight participants had an increase in their checking responses when they received an instruction with specification of an aversive consequence. In Experiment 2, seven of the eight participants showed an increase when they received an instruction with specification of an appetitive consequence. The conclusion was made that the instructions with specifications given to the participant altered the discriminative and/or motivating function of the stimuli involved in an experimental task.

Creative behavior is said to be novel and unique with respect to previous behavior, but this position leaves open more questions than answers. It is suggested that the analysis of "creative behavior" involves two behaviors: the behavior of the creator (as the person that engages in creative behavior) and the critic (as the individual that identifies the behavior or behavioral product as creative). A review of the behavior analytic and interbehavioral literature on creativity showed that the behavior of the critic has been so far neglected from experimental research. In the present poster an analysis of the behavior of the critic as part of the study of "cultural behavior" as defined by Kantor (1982) is proposed. This involves the study of the reactions with respect to institutional stimuli of persons belonging to a different group, comparison of individuals of the same group but with different subgroups, and finally, the study of the origins and changes of the person's behavior through a study of the products of its own cultural group. Challenges and future directions of this research are also discussed.

An online teaching method called Computer-Aided Personalized System of Instruction (CAPSI) has been recently tested to teach knowledge and application of discrete-trials teaching (DTT). Research shows that peer-reviewing, defined as marking done by students, contributes to the learning of students who act as peer-reviewers. This multi-site study evaluated the value of incorporating peer-review into a CAPSI DTT training package by comparing two groups: (a) with simulated peer-review (SPR) and (b) without simulated peer-review (WOSPR). The purpose was to investigate whether or not the peer-review would help the peer-reviewers to improve their comprehension of the DTT training package. The baseline required the participants to conduct a 12-trial DTT, write a test, and assess two video clips with research assistants conducting DTT. In the training period, participants were required to read a self-instructional manual and take a three-question quiz on CAPSI after finishing every chapter. For the post-study, the participants repeated the baseline. The results did not find any differences between the two groups. However, the study indicated that CAPSI is an effective method for teaching individuals DTT. Implications of the study include that using CAPSI could be more efficient for supervisors training new staff where turnover rates may be high.