The field of applied behavior analysis emphasizes the importance of conducting functional assessment prior to treatment development for problem behavior. There is, however, little information regarding the extent to which practitioners are using functional assessment in applied settings for individuals with developmental disabilities (DD). The purpose of the current study was to conduct a survey to assess the degree to which various types of functional assessment are implemented in agencies serving individuals with DD in the state of Massachusetts. Practitioners were asked to indicate their perception about and use of the various categories of functional assessment (e.g., indirect assessment, descriptive assessment, and functional analysis). From the 205 respondents who completed the survey, the most frequently used functional assessment was descriptive assessment. Results indicated that although the majority (67.8%) of practitioners believe functional analysis to be the most informative assessment tool for selecting behavioral treatment, only 34.6% of respondents indicated that they typically use functional analysis to inform the development of a behavior plan.
Overselective stimulus control refers to discriminative control in which the number of controlling stimuli is too limited for effective behavior. Experiment 1 included 22 special-education students who exhibited overselective stimulus control on a two-sample delayed matching task. An intervention added a compound identity matching opportunity within the sample observation period of the matching trials. The compound matching functioned as a differential observing response (DOR) in that high accuracy verified observation and discrimination of both sample stimuli. Nineteen participants learned to perform the DOR and two-sample delayed matching accuracy increased substantially for 16 of them. When the DOR was completely withdrawn after 10 sessions, accuracy declined. In Experiment 2, a more gradual withdrawal of DOR requirements showed that highly accurate performance could be maintained with the DOR on only a proportion of trials for most participants. The results show that DOR training may lead to a general improvement in observing behavior.
Stimulus overselectivity refers to maladaptive narrow attending that is a common learning problem among children with intellectual disabilities and frequently associated with autism. The present study contrasted overselectivity among groups of children with autism, Down syndrome, and typically developing children. Autism and Down syndrome groups were matched for intellectual level, and all three groups were matched for developmental levels on tests of nonverbal reasoning and receptive vocabulary. Delayed matching-to-sample tests presented color/form compounds, printed words, photographs of faces, Mayer-Johnson Picture Communication Symbols, and unfamiliar black forms. No significant differences among groups emerged for test accuracy scores. Overselectivity was not statistically overrepresented among individuals with autism in contrast to those with Down syndrome or typically developing children.
Individuals with developmental disabilities may fail to attend to multiple features in compound stimuli (e.g., arrays of pictures, letters within words) with detrimental effects on learning. Participants were 5 children with autism spectrum disorders who had low to intermediate accuracy scores (35% to 84%) on a computer-presented compound matching task. Sample stimuli were pairs of icons (e.g., chair-tree), the correct comparison was identical to the sample, and each incorrect comparison had one icon in common with the sample (e.g., chair-sun, airplane-tree). A 5-step tabletop sorting-to-matching training procedure was used to teach compound matching. The first step was sorting 3 single pictures; subsequent steps gradually changed the task into compound matching. If progress stalled, tasks were modified temporarily to prompt observing behavior. Following the tabletop training, participants were retested on the compound matching task; accuracy improved to at least 95% for all children. This procedure illustrates one way to improve attending to multiple features of compound stimuli.
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