Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display stimulus overselectivity, wherein a subset of relevant components in a compound stimulus controls responding, which impairs discrimination learning. The original experimental research on stimulus overselectivity in ASD was conducted several decades ago; however, interventions for…

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display stimulus overselectivity, wherein a subset of relevant components in a compound stimulus controls responding, which impairs discrimination learning. The original experimental research on stimulus overselectivity in ASD was conducted several decades ago; however, interventions for…

Stimulus overselectivity is widely accepted as a stimulus control abnormality in autism spectrum disorders and subsets of other populations. Previous research has demonstrated a link between both chronological and mental age and overselectivity in typical development. However, the age at which children are developmentally ready to respond to…

Results indicated that, for all but one of eight autistic children, visual discriminations were acquired significantly faster, with fewer errors, when the S+ stimulus was faded first. These findings are related to the literature on the effects of stimulus novelty on selection and learning. (Author/RH)

In order to investigate the hypothesis that autistic children tend to learn new discriminations by responding to only a restricted number of available cues, this study assessed the feasibility of teaching autistic children to respond to multiple cues. (SB)

The present investigation was conducted to determine if stimulus overselectivity in 19 autistic children (5 to 12 years old) is changed as a function of repeated exposure to testing. (Author/SBH)