Association for Behavior Analysis International

Three data-based papers will be presented on recent research on skill acquisition for children diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities. Paper one discusses a treatment package consisting of rules, feedback and multiple exemplar training to teach the emission of disguised mands. Paper two discusses a treatment package to teach children on the autism spectrum to tact past items and events. Paper three discusses percentile schedules of reinforcement to teach children with developmental disabilities to be on task. Applications of the research and recommendations for future research in these areas will be discussed.

BCBAs, clinicians

This study employed a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants design to teach three children diagnosed with autism to emit disguised mands. The intervention utilized was a combination of rules and multiple exemplar training, with direct in-vivo feedback. Results indicate the success of the intervention for all participants in emitting and reinforcing disguised mands, though generalization and maintenance results varied. Social validity data taken with participants’ parents and service providers demonstrate favorability of the intervention and its results. Suggestions for future research on complex verbal behavior and social skills are discussed.

Speaking about past events is an important part of a functional verbal repertoire. Social interactions, personal safety, and academic success may be enhanced by learning to speak about past events. Unfortunately, children with language delays may demonstrate deficiencies in speaking about past events. Despite the importance of this skill, few studies have evaluated how to teach children to speak about past events. Experiment 1 evaluated the effectiveness of a treatment package to teach tacts of previously seen items with three children with autism spectrum disorder. The treatment package consisted of differential reinforcement, intraverbal and stimulus prompt fading, and an increasing delay between seeing an item and being asked “What was in the box?" All three participants reached mastery at a delay of 64 min. Two participants demonstrated generalization to novel items and locations. Experiment 2 evaluated components of the treatment package. The add-in component analysis found that differential reinforcement was not sufficient to teach delayed tacts. Two of the three participants in Experiment 2 met mastery criterion and demonstrated generalization after all of the components of the treatment package were implemented. The treatment package in this study provides a potential model for clinicians interested in teaching tacts of past events.