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…

Research based upon a Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Graduate School, University of Pittsburgh, and supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service grant MH-1290 and by the New York State Research Foundation.

Study found that stimulus presence during a delay of reinforcement interval enhanced performance, and to a large extent prevented the usual delay-produced decrement. (Authors)

This study was designed to assess the relative effectiveness of four components of pretraining on a subsequent simultaneous discrimination and reversal: (1) making same-different judgments about the two stimuli; (2) making a specific observing response to the critical feature of the stimuli; (3) simple familiarization with the stimuli; and (4)…

This paper reports on alternative programs to current educational practice as a means of overcoming some institutional barriers to change. The program reported on the Tucson Early Education Model, a comprehensive educational program which encompasses all of the criterial attributes of the open classroom as specified in the introduction to this…