Students who are actively engaged in learning have a higher probability of academic and behavioral success in the classroom. One effective teaching practice that increases student engagement is providing students with frequent opportunities to respond (OTR). This article provides practitioners with a range of OTR strategies that include verbal,…

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder commonly exhibit vocal stereotypy, and this behavior may be targeted for treatment when it competes with daily tasks, disrupts the environment, or leads to reduced independence. Previous research has shown that access to music reduces vocal stereotypy. However, treatment evaluations typically occur during…

Anxiety is a common co-occurring condition in autism and impacts quality of life of autistic individuals and their families; autistic individuals who speak few or no words represent an under-researched group. This qualitative study aimed to understand more about parental recognition and management of anxiety in autistic individuals who speak few…

This study examined the generalizability and dependability of observational estimates of middle and high school teachers' use of praise and reprimands. Frequency of behavior-specific praise, general praise, and total reprimands were collected across 67, 20-min observations that took place during class-wide instruction in general education…

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is a common strategy for escape-maintained behaviors targeted for reduction (i.e., targeted behavior) exhibited by youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities. DRA often involves various methods of prompting to ensure the instruction or task remains in place until contingencies…

Several studies have reported conflicting results when assessing associations between stress and repetitive behaviors in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Some factors that may have caused these discrepant results include the monitoring of a single broad category for repetitive behaviors, the heterogeneity of the participants, and…

This article is intended to provide educators with recommendations for maintaining safety and protecting student dignity when writing and implementing crisis response plans. These recommendations include reducing student agitation by recognizing and responding to early signs of escalated student behaviors, embedding choice-making opportunities,…

An ABAB reversal design was employed to evaluate the effect of differential reinforcement of low (DRL) frequency behavior as an interdependent group contingency on the frequency of vocal disruptions of five males, 6-14-years old, diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. The results showed lower frequencies of vocal disruptions during…

Executive functioning is thought to contribute to adaptive behavior skills development in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, supporting data are largely based on caregiver reports of executive functioning. The current study evaluated whether performance-based measures of executive functioning (working memory and inhibition)…

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is an effective procedure for reducing disruptive classroom behavior. Students in three fifth-grade classes selected the rules of the GBG and then experienced the GBG with different forms of feedback for rule violations (vocal and visual, vocal only, visual only, no feedback). Following an initial baseline, the four…

This study examined the effects of presession attention on the acquisition of tacts (Experiment 1) and intraverbals (Experiment 2) in children diagnosed with autism. Each participant experienced 3 conditions. In the first 2 conditions, participants experienced a 15-min interval of either presession attention (PA) or no presession attention (NPA)…

Background: Traditional treatment for the behavioural symptoms in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) remains unsatisfactory. There is an urgent need for new, biologically relevant therapies that target both the core and comorbid symptoms that children may experience. This article builds on research previously published by the authors. Method: We…

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is an effective procedure for reducing disruptive classroom behavior. In this study, students in 3 fifth grade classes selected the rules of the GBG and then experienced the GBG with different forms of feedback delivery for rule violations (vocal and visual, vocal only, visual only, no feedback) on disruptive classroom…

Individuals who are dually diagnosed with Down Syndrome (DS) and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) frequently engage in vocal stereotypy that can interfere with learning, impede socially appropriate behavior, and disrupt others. Response interruption and redirection (RIRD) is an intervention that blocks and redirects stereotypy to reduce behavior.…

Background: Intervention on adolescent bullying is reliant on valid and reliable measurement of victimization "and" perpetration experiences across different behavioural expressions. Aims: This study developed and validated a survey tool that integrates measurement of both traditional and cyber bullying to test a theoretically driven…