Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who engage in stereotypy may also emit a prior, temporally contiguous, high-risk response to access stereotypic behaviors. For example, the participant in this study who was diagnosed with ASD engaged in a chained response that included elopement, often in unsafe locations, to access light…

Stereotypic behavior exhibited by a third grade boy with autism was maintained by automatic reinforcement and occurrences of stereotypy were brought under stimulus control. The intervention consisted of pairing a green discriminative stimulus card (SD) with free access to stereotypy and a red card (SD absent) with vocal redirection and blocking…

The study evaluated the usefulness of 48 hours of Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST) as a treatment for eight autistic children (between 5 and 11 years old). Ss were placed in a dimly lit room which contained only a mattress, told to ask for toilet facilities when needed, and then left alone except for when meals were brought in.…

Investigates third- and fourth-grade children's verbal evaluations of syllables paired with different reward schedules (full, partial, or none) for "pleasantness" and "curiosity." (Author/ED)

In this study, 48 third-grade children learned a successive, two-choice discrimination under one of three conditions: (1) immediate reinforcement (IM), (2) 10-second empty delay (ED), and (3) 10-second delay with the discriminative stimuli in view of S (FD). The performances of groups IM and FD were only marginally different, and were both…

The effect of level of stereotypy on learning a discrimination was examined using a factorial design with high and low levels of stereotypy and three levels of IQ with 30 institutionalized retarded persons. Results indicated the effects of stereotypy were different across the IQ levels. (Author/DB)

Forty primary school students were randomly assigned into four groups based on the level of pretest approval provision and type of pretest task. The efficacy of social approval as a reinforcing stimulus was then tested on a two-choice discrimination learning task in which every correct response was reinforced by contingent approval presentation.…

Measures of active sleep, quiet sleep, sucking, crying, body size and gestational age were factor analyzed for 137 normal newborns at 2 days of age. The results yielded 3 stable factors: reactivity-irritability, maturity, and reflexive and discriminative sucking. (JMB)

Parents and counselors must learn communication techniques which encourage expression of feelings and at the same time indicate adult approval or disapproval of the child's expressed behavior. Children must be helped to discriminate between a disapproving act and the doer". (CJ)

The effects of meaningfulness of the stimulus materials and the presence or absence of contextual cues on problem-solving behavior were investigated. Third-graders (N=80) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and their performance in a series of discrimination problems was observed. Subjects in Conditions I and II responded to stimuli…