Association for Behavior Analysis International

With increases in diagnoses of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) over the past decade, it is imperative that children have early access to services (Chasson, Harris, & Neely, 2007). Early Intensive Behavioral Interventions (EIBI) is an applied behavior analytic approach that can be effective for remediating ASD symptoms for some individuals (Matson & Smith, 2008). Stakeholders report long waitlists for services and the effects of a delay is unknown. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect a delay in EIBI for children with ASD (aged 3-5) have on later educational outcomes. Medicaid records from Minnesota were used to create a cohort who received a diagnosis between 2008 and 2010. Education records were matched from 2014 (94.5% match rate, n= 607). Delay to EIBI and educational outcomes (e.g., primary educational ASD diagnosis, instructional placement, standardized test scores) were evaluated with logistic regressions. Approximately 70% of children in this study experienced a delay to EIBI, with an average delay of nine months. Delays of five months or more were significantly associated with more restrictive instructional placements. Although some received services before a diagnosis was given, there are delays in Minnesota which may be detrimental. Future research should investigate if a telehealth delivery model could supplement services early on.

The focus of this presentation will be to study the effect of a self-monitoring list on the transition across dissimilar tasks allotted during an hour long behavior analytic therapy session in a child exhibiting Autism Spectrum Disorder. The purpose of this experiment is to show that the use of a self-monitoring list will have a significant effect on the time taken to transition from one task to another. It is a single case experimental design and the participant is a nine year old boy who is diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. He was provided with a personalized self-monitoring list containing a randomized array of tasks with slots specifying the varying schedules for reinforcers which was monitored by him through the course of the session. The use of the self-monitoring list has minimized transitioning difficulties experienced by the participant with reference to both time and behavior. A future implication could involve the use of self - monitoring list to help the participant transition through tasks in social and other non-academic settings.

Responses to the spoken language of others (i.e., receptive language) is commonly targeted, directly or indirectly, within interventions for individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Grow & LeBlanc, 2013). Receptive labels are one of the common receptive language response often targeted through a discrete trial teaching (DTT; Lovaas, 1981, 1987) approach. Some authors have discussed the risks (e.g., faulty stimulus control) of including irrelevant or additional information in the instruction (e.g., "Touch the ball" as opposed to "ball"; Green, 2001; Grow & LeBlanc, 2013). The purpose of this study was to explore the relative effectiveness of the complexity of instructions on receptive language skill acquisition for an individual diagnosed with ASD.

Safely accessing transportation is an area of deficit for many individuals diagnosed with intellectual disabilities, which can negatively impact their ability to access important educational and community based learning experiences. Despite this, the majority of research on this topic has focused on increasing seatbelt wearing with young drivers specifically high school and college students. This lack of research on seatbelt safety is an immediate concern for the safety of individuals within the intellectual and developmental disabilities population. The purpose of this study was to determine an effective treatment to reduce seatbelt removal while in a vehicle. The participant was a 16-year old diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder and an intellectual disability, who lived on a residential campus where his behavior while in vehicles was a significant barrier to less restrictive settings. First, a reversal design with an imbedded alternating treatments design was utilized to evaluate interventions, including blocking, differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO), noncontingent reinforcement (NCR), and a combination of DRO and NCR. Results of the treatment evaluation indicated that a DRO procedure alone was most effective in increasing seatbelt wearing and decreasing seatbelt removal, along with other problem behavior. Therefore, the DRO procedure was evaluated independently and faded to acceptable rates for direct care staff implementation. These results indicate that a single component intervention was successful at increasing seatbelt wearing resulting in greater community access and an improved quality of life. Reliability data was collected for 89% of sessions across conditions with an average agreement of 99%.

Parent involvement is a crucial component of behavioral interventions, particularly as it relates to language development for toddlers and young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. An intensive short-term training model has previously demonstrated efficacy in teaching parents to implement Pivotal Response Treatment (Koegel, Symon, & Koegel, 2002). However, the 25 hour one-week model lacks social validity for some parents of toddlers because the schedule can interrupt natural sleep routines. As a result, an abbreviated 15-hour model was offered to parents of toddlers, while parents with young children continued to enroll in the 25-hour model. 28 parent-child dyads participated in the current year-long pilot study, with 7 dyads enrolled in the 15-hour model and 21 dyads enrolled in the 25-hour model. Results indicate that across both service options parents increased their fidelity of implementation with average scores in an acceptable range of fidelity. During the one-week training period, 5 of 7 dyads enrolled in the 15-hour model and 16 of the 21 dyads enrolled in the 25-hour model obtained fidelity of implementation. These findings further support for short-term training models and warrant further investigation of the brief model and programming for toddlers.

A multiple baseline design was used to examine the effects of behavioral momentum and positive punishment on echolalia. The procedure was implemented for a child with autism who engaged in high rates of echolalia following vocal instructions. Echolalia was defined as any instance where the student repeats a word or a phrase said by an adult or a student, outside of an appropriate context. The intervention increased correct responding and decreased echolalia for a 6-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder.