The purpose of this study was to use stimulus equivalence technology to teach emotion recognition skills to three adults with acquired brain injuries. A pre-test, post-test design was employed to test for acquisition of the facial recognition skills after training. Computer presentation of the stimuli was used. A pre-test was conducted, in which participants' abilities to expressively label facial representations of emotions and match distinct representations of emotions to other representations depicting the same emotion were examined. Next, participants received matching-to-sample training, in which they were first taught to receptively identify the facial representations of the basic emotions happiness, sadness and anger. They were then taught to receptively identify facial representations of those same emotions that were different from the first representations. When mastery criterion was attained, a post-test identical to the pre-test was presented. Results showed that the participants were able to demonstrate increased facial-emotional recognition skills after training.

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The present paper describes two studies in which participants with and without acquired brain injuries were compared on a temporal discounting task involving various hypothetical amounts of money available at varying delay values. During Experiment 1, both groups of participants were presented with choices between amounts of money ranging from 1 to 1000 US dollars at delays from 1 week to 10 years. The results obtained from this procedure were consistent with previous models of temporal delay discounting for control group participants, yet not for the majority of the participants with acquired brain injuries. During Experiment 2, adjustments in hypothetical amounts and delays were made whereby the amounts of money ranged from 1 to 20 US dollars at delays from 1 day to 1 year. These manipulations yielded data generally consistent with temporal delay discounting models previously reported in the published literature. The utility of using delay discounting procedures as a means of assessing impulsivity in persons with acquired brain injuries is presented.

We investigated the effects of a concurrent physical therapy activity (keeping the hand open) during delays to reinforcement in an adult man with acquired brain injuries. Once a relatively stable level of hand-open behavior was obtained, the participant was asked to choose between a small immediate reinforcer and a larger delayed reinforcer contingent on keeping the hand open at greater-than-baseline duration. Afterwards, the participant was asked to select between a larger delayed reinforcer with no hand-open requirement and the identical larger delayed reinforcer with a progressively increasing hand-open requirement. Results suggest a shift in preference to larger delayed reinforcers and an eventual preference for the hand-open requirement option.

The following paper will detail demographic information about alcohol and substance abuse issues in the acquired brain injury (ABI) population. Included in such a review will be a systematic presentation of the current data on the incidence of such issues as well as a comprehensive treatment model with outcome data provided. Pre- and post-test measures of separate functional outcome areas were employed to assess the effects of the treatment package. The paper will document the core elements of a substance abuse treatment programme that is based upon community inclusion and positive, proactive treatment methods in facilitating decreases in substance abuse behaviour. The programme employed a host of individual and group session protocols specifically targeted at education and self-monitoring of behaviour in order to facilitate more effective self-control of addictive behaviours. The positive outcomes achieved by the participants involved in the study provide clinical justification for a proactive behavioural approach to substance abuse in the ABI population.

This study examined the effects of relaxation training and biofeedback on the ataxic tremor of an adult with an acquired brain injury. The participant was taught relaxation techniques before biofeedback was introduced. Once he was proficient in relaxation, these skills we used as a foundation for biofeedback training. Specific skills crucial to the performance of activities of daily living were trained once the participant was able to control the appropriate musculature according to an individualized criterion level. These skills included eating and the transfer of liquids in a glass. The results demonstrated that the participant learned to decrease the amount of tremor that he experienced. As a result he was better able to feed himself and to drink from a glass with less staff assistance than he had previously required.

The following paper details the implementation of a program to address the high-risk physical aggression and property destruction behavior of an adult male with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and severe aggressive behavior. A task analysis (TA) and forward chaining were combined with a stimulus fading procedure to allow the subject to be able to participate in van rides when prompted with no displays of aggressive or self-injurious behavior. A follow-up probe completed at 1-year post intervention demonstrated the maintenance of the gains that were made during treatment.Keywords Fading . Autism . Non-compliance . Task analysis . Physical aggression . Self-injurious behaviorThe teaching of complex skills that involve a number of steps is a challenge that faces those working with individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). The task is much more manageable when the complex behaviors are broken down into a series of steps that are taught individually. This forward chaining approach involves the first step in the task being taught followed by the succeeding steps (Cooper et al. 2007). An obstacle to completing the chain can be escapemaintained disruptive behavior. The use of effective chaining procedures can be combined with other behavioral techniques to facilitate learning despite significant aggression.Avoidance responses have been treated using various behavioral procedures (Jones and Friman 1999;Shabani and Fisher 2006). These approaches have employed graduated exposure protocols or hierarchies in order to expose the subject to the avoided stimulus. The intent is to induce extinction of the avoidance response through the systematic presentation of the feared stimulus. Shabani and Fisher (2006) demonstrated this intervention when applied to the needle phobia of an 18 year old with an autism spectrum disorder. The results showed that he was able to tolerate the use of the lancet and to follow the steps that were required to draw his blood at the completion of the hierarchy. Similar results were found with a 35-year-old female that displayed a fear of riding in cars.Operant techniques were used to treat the car avoidance displayed by a female subject (Mansdorf 1976). Verbal resistance and other aggressive behaviors were noted when the subject was told that she would have to ride in a car in order to go to a work program. A hierarchy was constructed consisting of a list of successive approximations that culminated in the subject taking progressively longer car rides with the experimenter.The current study used similar operant procedures to treat the significant aggression of an adult with an autism spectrum disorder. The aggression was displayed whenever he was prompted to ride in a van to the day program that he was attending. The primary difference in this study is the severity of the aggressive behavior and the significant obstacle that this posed to safe transport in a van. Several staff and family members had received injuries as a result of the aggressive behavior displayed when the subject wa...

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