Effects of Presession Pairing on Challenging Behavior and Academic Responding for Children with Autism

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In Folder: Behavioral Analysis, Ph.D.

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Effects of Presession Pairing on Challenging Behavior and Academic Responding for Children with Autism

Kelly, Amanda - Dissertation

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title: Effects of Presession Pairing on Challenging Behavior and Academic Responding for Children with Autism

creator: Kelly, Amanda

subject: Dissertations, Academic.

description: As a result of pairing with work demands, the presence of an instructor may signal a worsening set of aversive conditions (i.e., reflexive conditioned motivating operation; CMO-R). The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of presession pairing of the instructor with preferred stimuli on disruptive behavior and correct academic responding. Functional analyses indicated a primary or combined escape function for three children diagnosed with autism. For participants with multiply-maintained challenging behavior, attention was a co-occurring function. Preference assessments were completed to identify preferred items for each participant. The discrete-trial-training used to teach math and spelling skills was the same across the baseline and presession pairing sessions. In the presession pairing phase, the investigator engaged playfully with the participant with a highly preferred item for 2-4 minutes immediately before the instructional session. Results in a multiple baseline across participants design indicated that presession pairing was effective in reducing disruptive behaviors and increasing inter-response times of challenging behaviors. Results also indicated that presession pairing had little effect (either positive or negative) on the percentage of correct academic responses. In the context of discrete trial teaching, presession pairing was an effective antecedent procedure that increased opportunities for reinforcement and reduced self-injurious behavior, aggression, property destruction, and negative statements related to task demands. When challenging behaviors occurred in presession pairing conditions, many occurred during error correction procedures. Future researchers should investigate the effects of errorless teaching procedures in conjunction with presession pairing. Future researchers should also replicate presession pairing procedures and continue investigating its mechanism by directly testing the reinforcing value of the adult paired with strong reinforcers.

publisher: Simmons College (Boston, Mass.)

contributor:

date: 2013

type: Text

format: 1 PDF (81 Pages)

identifier: td_ba_2013_ak

source:

language: English

relation:

coverage:

rights: Material from the Simmons University Archives collections are made available for study purposes only. For more information, or to request rights to reproduce or reuse any material, contact the University Archives at archives@simmons.edu.

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