Examining dynamic visual scene displays: implications for arranging and teaching symbol selection.

Purpose: Evidence supports using visual scene displays (VSDs) with young children using speech-generating devices. This study examined initial and subsequent performance during VSD use by children age 24-27 and 33-36 months to explore child characteristics that may relate to navigational skill differences.

Method: Children located 9 vocabulary items using a dynamic VSD.

Task engagement and escape maintained challenging behavior: differential effects of general and explicit cues when implementing a signaled delay in the delivery of reinforcement.

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of explicit and general delay cues when implementing a tolerance for a delay in the delivery of a reinforcement procedure to increase task engagement and decrease escape maintained challenging behavior. Two preschool children with autism participated in an alternating treatments design with changing criterions for task engagement. For both children, descriptive and experimental analyses verified that the challenging behavior functioned to escape instructional task demands.