Twenty-four children with autism were randomly assigned to a clinic-directed group, replicating the parameters of the early intensive behavioral treatment developed at UCLA, or to a parent-directed group that received intensive hours but less supervision by equally well-trained supervisors. Outcome after 4 years of treatment, including cognitive, language, adaptive, social, and academic measures, was similar for both groups. After combining groups, we found that 48% of all children showed rapid learning, achieved average posttreatment scores, and at age 7, were succeeding in regular education classrooms. Treatment outcome was best predicted by pretreatment imitation, language, and social responsiveness. These results are consistent with those reported by Lovaas and colleagues (Lovaas, 1987;.Behavioral approaches for addressing the delays and deficits common in autism have been recognized by many as the most effective treatment methods to date (
The effect of subjective value of the reinforcer (RSv) on performance in a sentence-construction, verbal conditioning task was examined. Sixty undergraduate males were randomly assigned to positive or negative reinforcement groups in which they were reinforced (E said "Good" and "Hmm," respectively) following sentences beginning with designated pronouns. After each sentence, 5s rated the pleasantness of the reinforcer or of E's silence. Awareness of the pronoun-reinforcement contingency was assessed by four separate procedures: a commonly used postconditioning interview, written "thoughts about the experiment," a simple recognition question, and a new card-sort technique. Using the most defensible criterion of awareness, only aware 5s who rated the reinforcer as more pleasant than silence showed significant performance change. Performance of unaware 5s was unaffected by the value of RSv. It was concluded that the effect of RSv on performance was mediated by awareness of the correct response-reinforcement contingency.
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