1. Allison J, Wilder DA, Chong I, Lugo A, Pike J, Rudy N. {{A comparison of differential reinforcement and noncontingent reinforcement to treat food selectivity in a child with autism}}. {J Appl Behav Anal};2012 (Fall);45(3):613-617.
We compared differential reinforcement plus escape extinction to noncontingent reinforcement plus escape extinction to treat food selectivity exhibited by a young child with autism. The interventions were equally effective for increasing bite acceptance and decreasing problem behaviors. However, a social validity measure suggested that noncontingent reinforcement was preferred by the child’s caregiver.
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2. Fragale CL, O’Reilly MF, Aguilar J, Pierce N, Lang R, Sigafoos J, Lancioni G. {{The influence of motivating operations on generalization probes of specific mands by children with autism}}. {J Appl Behav Anal};2012 (Fall);45(3):565-577.
We investigated the influence of motivating operations on the generalization of newly taught mands across settings and communication partners for 3 children with autism. Two conditions were implemented prior to generalization probes. In the first condition, participants were given access to a preferred item until they rejected the item (i.e., abolishing operation). In the second condition, the item was not available to participants prior to generalization probes (i.e., establishing operation). The effects of these conditions on the generalization of newly taught mands were evaluated in a multielement design. Results indicated differentiated responding during generalization probes in which more manding with the target mand was observed following the presession no-access condition than in the presession access condition. These results support the consideration of motivating operations when assessing generalization of target mands to various untrained contexts.
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3. Leaf JB, Oppenheim-Leaf ML, Leaf R, Courtemanche AB, Taubman M, McEachin J, Sheldon JB, Sherman JA. {{Observational effects on the preferences of children with autism}}. {J Appl Behav Anal};2012 (Fall);45(3):473-483.
Children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may play with limited objects or toys, making it difficult for teachers to identify reinforcers to use in teaching new skills. The goal of this study was to alter children’s preferences from highly preferred toys to toys that were originally less preferred using an observational pairing procedure. Child participants observed a preferred adult playing with toys that were initially less preferred by the child. This intervention resulted in a shift in preference toward the item manipulated by the adult. Maintenance of the changed preference was idiosyncratic across participants. Results suggest a procedure for expanding the range of items that students with ASD will select.
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4. Lin A, Rangel A, Adolphs R. {{Impaired learning of social compared to monetary rewards in autism}}. {Front Neurosci};2012;6:143.
A leading hypothesis to explain the social dysfunction in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is that they exhibit a deficit in reward processing and motivation specific to social stimuli. However, there have been few direct tests of this hypothesis to date. Here we used an instrumental reward learning task that contrasted learning with social rewards (pictures of positive and negative faces) against learning with monetary reward (winning and losing money). The two tasks were structurally identical except for the type of reward, permitting direct comparisons. We tested 10 high-functioning people with ASD (7M, 3F) and 10 healthy controls who were matched on gender, age, and education. We found no significant differences between the two groups in terms of overall ability behaviorally to discriminate positive from negative slot machines, reaction-times, and valence ratings, However, there was a specific impairment in the ASD group in learning to choose social rewards, compared to monetary rewards: they had a significantly lower cumulative number of choices of the most rewarding social slot machine, and had a significantly slower initial learning rate for the socially rewarding slot machine, compared to the controls. The findings show a deficit in reward learning in ASD that is greater for social rewards than for monetary rewards, and support the hypothesis of a disproportionate impairment in social reward processing in ASD.
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5. Marchese NV, Carr JE, Leblanc LA, Rosati TC, Conroy SA. {{The effects of the question « what is this? » on tact-training outcomes of children with autism}}. {J Appl Behav Anal};2012 (Fall);45(3):539-547.
Tact training is a common element of many habilitative programs for individuals with developmental disabilities. A commonly recommended practice is to include a supplemental question (e.g., « What is this? ») during training trials for tacts of objects. However, the supplemental question is not a defining feature of the tact relation, and prior research suggests that its inclusion might sometimes impede tact acquisition. The present study compared tact training with and without the supplemental question in terms of acquisition and maintenance. Two of 4 children with autism acquired tacts more efficiently in the object-only condition; the remaining 2 children acquired tacts more efficiently in the object + question condition. During maintenance tests in the absence of the supplemental question, all participants emitted tacts at end-of-training levels across conditions with no differential effect observed between training conditions.
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6. Polick AS, Carr JE, Hanney NM. {{A comparison of general and descriptive praise in teaching intraverbal behavior to children with autism}}. {J Appl Behav Anal};2012 (Fall);45(3):593-599.
Descriptive praise has been recommended widely as an important teaching tactic for children with autism, despite the absence of published supporting evidence. We compared the effects of descriptive and general praise on the acquisition and maintenance of intraverbal skills with 2 children with autism. The results showed slight advantages of descriptive praise in teaching efficiency in the majority of comparisons; however, these effects dissipated over time.
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7. Slocum SK, Miller SJ, Tiger JH. {{Using a blocked-trials procedure to teach identity matching to a child with autism}}. {J Appl Behav Anal};2012 (Fall);45(3):619-624.
Children with autism may struggle in developing conditional discrimination repertoires. Saunders and Spradlin (1989, 1990, 1993) arranged « blocked » teaching trials in which they presented the same sample stimulus repeatedly across trials (in lieu of randomly alternating targets across trials) and then faded the number of trials in each block. We replicated the effects of this blocked-trials procedure in teaching identity matching to a child with autism and evaluated the necessity of fading. Arranging blocked trials facilitated the acquisition of identity matching, but fading the block size was not necessary to maintain discriminated performance.
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8. Tanabe HC, Kosaka H, Saito DN, Koike T, Hayashi MJ, Izuma K, Komeda H, Ishitobi M, Omori M, Munesue T, Okazawa H, Wada Y, Sadato N. {{Hard to « tune in »: neural mechanisms of live face-to-face interaction with high-functioning autistic spectrum disorder}}. {Front Hum Neurosci};2012;6:268.
Persons with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are known to have difficulty in eye contact (EC). This may make it difficult for their partners during face to face communication with them. To elucidate the neural substrates of live inter-subject interaction of ASD patients and normal subjects, we conducted hyper-scanning functional MRI with 21 subjects with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) paired with typically-developed (normal) subjects, and with 19 pairs of normal subjects as a control. Baseline EC was maintained while subjects performed real-time joint-attention task. The task-related effects were modeled out, and inter-individual correlation analysis was performed on the residual time-course data. ASD-Normal pairs were less accurate at detecting gaze direction than Normal-Normal pairs. Performance was impaired both in ASD subjects and in their normal partners. The left occipital pole (OP) activation by gaze processing was reduced in ASD subjects, suggesting that deterioration of eye-cue detection in ASD is related to impairment of early visual processing of gaze. On the other hand, their normal partners showed greater activity in the bilateral occipital cortex and the right prefrontal area, indicating a compensatory workload. Inter-brain coherence in the right IFG that was observed in the Normal-Normal pairs (Saito et al., 2010) during EC diminished in ASD-Normal pairs. Intra-brain functional connectivity between the right IFG and right superior temporal sulcus (STS) in normal subjects paired with ASD subjects was reduced compared with in Normal-Normal pairs. This functional connectivity was positively correlated with performance of the normal partners on the eye-cue detection. Considering the integrative role of the right STS in gaze processing, inter-subject synchronization during EC may be a prerequisite for eye cue detection by the normal partner.
