Stimulus overselectivity in autism: A review of research.

Abstract

Infantile autism is a severe form of psychopathology characterized by profound behavioral deficits. This article reviews a series of investigations which suggest that autistic children show "stimulus overselectivity," a response to only a limited number of cues in their environment, and discusses how such overselectivity may relate to several of the behavioral deficits in autism. These include failure to develop normal language or social behavior, failure to generalize newly acquired behavior to new stimulus situations, failure to learn from traditional teaching techniques that use prompts, and a general difficulty in learning new behaviors. This discussion is followed by the presentation of several studies that suggest possible remedial procedures. Finally, the concept of stimulus overselectivity is related to the literature on other theories of attentional or response deficits in adult schizophrenia, mental retardation, learning disabilities, and autism.Infantile autism, first described by Kanner (1943), is a severe form of psychopathology in children that is characterized by extreme social and emotional detachment. Such children typically do not seek or readily accept affection and do not play with peers. They engage in great amounts of stereotyped, ritualistic, and repetitive motor behaviors and are generally unresponsive to their physical environment. They are inconsistent in their response to sensory input, they typically do not show a startle reflex, and their parents have suspected them to be blind or deaf. Language development is either absent or

Normal Peer Models and Autistic Children's Learning

“…When one considers this fact in the light of articles relating observational learning to IQ and/or maturational level (e.g., Lovaas, Koegel, & Schreibman, 1979;Ross, 1976; Varni et al, 1979), it seems conceivable that the present findings that autistic children are able to learn through observation may need to be qualified in terms of these children's level of functioning. That level, however, is typical of a very large proportion of the autistic population, who are currently being excluded from interactions with normal peers.…”

“…This possibility seems particularly encouraging in that it relates to a large literature describing a characteristic difficulty in directing autistic children's responding to relevant cues (cf. Koegel, Dunlap, Richman, & Dyer, in press;Koegel & Schreibman, 1977;Lovaas et al, 1979;Ornitz & Ritvo, 1968;Rincover, 1978;Schopler, 1965;Schreibman, 1975).…”

Autism Overflows with Syntheses

“…Our article never purports to constitute a theory in itself, and from its very beginning relates our observations of single-channel perception to an established theoretical context described in terms of stimulus overselectivity (Lovaas et al 1979), monotropism (Murray et al 2005), and impaired attention shifting (Allen & Courchesne 2001). Professor Waterhouse misattributes to us a causal claim that "autism results from monochannel of [sic] winner-takes-all perceptual processing" when in fact all that we claim is that our case results support the existence of such winner-takes-all processing in autism.…”

Leitura recombinativa em pessoas com necessidades educacionais especiais: análise do controle parcial pelas sílabas

“…O controle parcial pelos componentes da palavra, conhecido na literatura como controle restrito de estímulos ou superseletividade de estímulos (Lovaas, Koegel & Schreibman, 1979;Wilhelm & Lovaas, 1976), tem sido documentado nos estudos de leitura em crianças da Educação Infantil (Malheiros & cols, 2004;Matos, Hübner & cols. 1997) e em crianças expostas ao ensino formal da leitura, mas que não aprenderam a ler (Cardoso & Kato, 2005;de Rose & cols, 1989;de Sena, Kato & Cruz, 2005;de Souza & cols, 1999;Melchiori & cols., 1992;Nascimento & cols., 2004).…”