Rule-Governed Behavior: Teaching Social Skills via Rule-Following to Children with Autism.

Rule-governed behavior (RGB) is behavior that is controlled by verbal descriptions of contingencies rather than by direct contact or a history of direct contact with the contingencies. Humans rely on RGB to navigate a multitude of life experiences, and in doing so, we avoid direct contact with destructive or harmful contingencies or contingencies that would be inefficient to contact. However, individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) frequently struggle with RGB, leaving them at increased risk of contacting aversive consequences.

The impact of stimulus preference, order-effects, and treatment component omission in evaluating treatment integrity.

Prior research on treatment integrity has focused either on the lack of measurement of the independent variable or on methods to increase overall levels of treatment integrity. Little research has focused on the effectiveness of common interventions when implemented with less than perfect integrity. The current investigation evaluated the effectiveness of using differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) and prompting to increase math completion for 36 early elementary students.

Teaching children with autism to tie their shoes using video prompt-models and backward chaining.

Video-Based Interventions (VBIs) are those that make use of pre-recorded video footage to assist in the acquisition of a variety of skills and behaviours. This study examined one type of VBI, video prompting, and its effectiveness when combined with backward chaining. Prior research suggests that both VBIs and backward chaining are effective intervention methods for skill acquisition.

Evaluating an integrated support model for increasing treatment plan implementation following consultation in schools.

This study examined the percentage of steps implemented from treatment plans following consultation with teachers. Interventions were implemented for 39 elementary school students referred for consultation and treatment for challenging behavior or academic deficits. An integrated support model that included antecedent social influence and planning combined with follow-up performance feedback was compared to weekly structured follow-up interviews.

Using performance feedback to enhance implementation fidelity of the problem-solving team process.

Implementation integrity is a potentially critical issue for problem-solving teams (PST) and most response-to-intervention models. The current study hypothesized that providing performance feedback, which has consistently been shown to increase implementation integrity, to PSTs would enhance the procedural integrity of the process. The PSTs for three elementary schools were provided performance feedback with a 20-item checklist created from the literature.

Evaluating preference assessments for use in the general education population.

This study compared the effectiveness of a multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO) preference assessment and teacher preference ranking in identifying reinforcers for use in a general education setting with typically developing elementary-school children. The mean number of digits correctly answered was greater in the MSWO-selected reward and the teacher-selected reward conditions relative to the no-reward condition for 2 of the 4 participants, but there were no differences between the MSWO-selected and teacher-selected reward conditions for any participant.

Sequencing instructional tasks. A comparison of contingent and noncontingent interspersal of preferred academic tasks.

This study compared two strategies for increasing accurate responding on a low-preference academic task by interspersing presentations of a preferred academic task. Five children attending a preschool program for children with delayed language development participated in this study. Preferred and nonpreferred tasks were identified through a multiple-stimulus, free-operant preference assessment.