Validation of a skills assessment to match interventions to teach motor imitation to children with autism
Publication date: Available online 10 March 2017Source: Learning and MotivationAuthor(s): Amber L. Valentino, Linda A. LeBlanc, Kerry A. CondeAbstractMotor imitation skills are usually targeted early in intervention with children with autism. Some children readily acquire motor imitation targets that involve objects (e.g., pushing a toy car) but do not acquire targets without objects (e.g., clapping hands). The disparity in acquisition could occur for various reasons, including differences in attending when an object is present as opposed to when no object is present. It also is possible that the delay in imitation that is...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Increasing sharing in children with autism spectrum disorder using automated discriminative stimuli
Publication date: Available online 11 March 2017Source: Learning and MotivationAuthor(s): Ami J. Kaminski, Wayne W. Fisher, Brian D. Greer, Jessica S. AkersAbstractAppropriate sharing of a high-preference item is a common problem among children with autism spectrum disorder (Baron-Cohen et al., 1985). The purpose of the current study was to evaluate whether a multiple schedule of reinforcement could be used to promote appropriate turn-taking behavior. Participants included one dyad of siblings and one dyad of non-related peers who were identified as having poorly developed sharing skills. The first dyad included a 6-year-o...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Reliability and validity of indirect assessment outcomes: Experts versus caregivers
Publication date: Available online 20 March 2017Source: Learning and MotivationAuthor(s): Joseph D. Dracobly, Claudia L. Dozier, Adam M. Briggs, Jessica F. JuanicoAbstractClinicians often conduct indirect assessments (IAs; e.g., Durand & Crimmins, 1988; Iwata, DeLeon, & Roscoe, 2013; Matson & Vollmer, 1995) such as questionnaires and interviews with caregivers to gain information about the variables influencing problem behavior. However, researchers have found poor reliability and validity of IAs with respect to determining functional variables. There are numerous variables that might influence the efficacy of IAs as an as...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
An individualized method for establishing and thinning multiple schedules of reinforcement following functional communication training
Publication date: Available online 23 March 2017Source: Learning and MotivationAuthor(s): Nathan A. Call, Seth B. Clark, Joanna Lomas Mevers, Natalie A. Parks, Valerie M. Volkert, Mindy C. ScheithauerAbstractUsing multiple schedules of reinforcement following functional communication training (FCT) can produce discriminated mands while maintaining low rates of problem behavior (Fisher et al., 1998; Hanley et al., 2001). A review of this literature (Saini et al., 2016) noted the absence of a method for systematically determining the duration of reinforcement (SD) and extinction (SΔ) components in such multiple-schedule arr...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A comparison of flipped-spoon presentation and redistribution to decrease packing in children with feeding disorders
Publication date: Available online 24 March 2017Source: Learning and MotivationAuthor(s): Kathryn H. Stubbs, Valerie M. Volkert, Emily Kate Rubio, Elissa OttingerAbstractFor children with feeding disorders, nonremoval procedures combined with reinforcement are often used by practitioners to treat initial food refusal (Volkert et al., 2016; Volkert & Piazza, 2012). However, this treatment may not always be sufficient to increase food consumption because problematic behaviors such as packing (holding food in the mouth) or expulsion emerge. Antecedent- and consequence-based interventions have both been effective to decrease p...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Introduction to the special issue on applied behavior analysis
Publication date: Available online 14 April 2017Source: Learning and MotivationAuthor(s): Brian D. Greer, Tiffany Kodak (Source: Learning and Motivation)
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Assessing preference for and reinforcing efficacy of components of social interaction in individuals with autism spectrum disorder
Publication date: Available online 15 April 2017Source: Learning and MotivationAuthor(s): Casey J. Clay, Andrew L. Samaha, Bistra K. BogoevAbstractWe evaluated the degree to which social interactions are reinforcing for two individuals with autism spectrum disorder by comparing individual components (i.e., edible, vocal, and physical interaction) alone and in combination. First, we conducted preference assessments to determine preference hierarchies within three stimulus classes: edible, vocal, and physical interaction. Second, we evaluated preference for individual stimuli across these classes. Third, we examined the rela...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Comparing illusion of control and superstitious behavior: Rate of responding influences judgment of control in a free-operant procedure
The objective of this experiment was to study similarities between superstitious behavior and illusion of control. We used different motivational instructions to generate high and low rates of responding and exposed participants to noncontingent reinforcement in order to evaluate superstitious behavior and illusion of control. College students (n = 40) responded over three 10-min sessions in a computer-based free operant procedure that alternated signaled periods of noncontingent presentation of points (VT schedule) and periods in which the points were not presented (extinction, EXT). In one group of participants...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Evaluating group activity schedules to promote social play in children with autism
Publication date: Available online 27 December 2017Source: Learning and MotivationAuthor(s): Dana M. Gadaire, Katrina Bartell, Jamie VillacortaAbstractWe evaluated the effects of group activity schedules on social engagement among children with autism spectrum disorders. Although activity schedules are often applied to dyads, we assigned children to small groups (e.g., 3–4 children) to increase the number of available play partners and potential social validity of the intervention. We also compared the effects of group activity schedules with a similar intervention consisting exclusively of therapist-delivered prompts. R...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Defensive burying as an ethological approach to studying anxiety: Influence of juvenile methamphetamine on adult defensive burying behavior in rats
Publication date: February 2018Source: Learning and Motivation, Volume 61Author(s): E.M. Anderson, M.L. McWaters, L.M. McFadden, L. MatuszewichAbstractThe defensive burying test is an ethological approach that has both pharmacological and physiological validity in studying rodent anxiety-like behaviors. The defensive burying test measures the naturally occurring behavior of displacing bedding toward a noxious stimulus. Exposure to psychostimulants can alter anxiety behaviors in children and adults, however few studies have investigated the long-term effects of chronic juvenile stimulant exposure on anxiety behaviors in adu...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Editorial Board
Publication date: February 2018Source: Learning and Motivation, Volume 61Author(s): (Source: Learning and Motivation)
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Ethological approaches to studying psychological phenomena
Publication date: February 2018Source: Learning and Motivation, Volume 61Author(s): Douglas G. Wallace (Source: Learning and Motivation)
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Behavioral and neural subsystems of rodent exploration
Publication date: February 2018Source: Learning and Motivation, Volume 61Author(s): Shannon M. Thompson, Laura E. Berkowitz, Benjamin J. ClarkAbstractAnimals occupy territories in which resources such as food and shelter are often distributed unevenly. While studies of exploratory behavior have typically involved the laboratory rodent as an experimental subject, questions regarding what constitutes exploration have dominated. A recent line of research has utilized a descriptive approach to the study of rodent exploration, which has revealed that this behavior is organized into movement subsystems that can be readily quanti...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Homeward bound: The capacity of the food hoarding task to assess complex cognitive processes
Publication date: February 2018Source: Learning and Motivation, Volume 61Author(s): Shawn S. Winter, Philip A. Blankenship, Max L. MehlmanAbstractFood hoarding is an adaptive behavior that functions to reduce the risk of predation. Rats are central-place hoarders that remove food from its sources and store or consume it at a nest or refuge location. Food hoarding is a spontaneous behavior that experimenters have taken advantage of to assess various aspects of cognition. The food hoarding task involves an outward segment where the rat leaves a refuge to search for food, upon finding food they have to decide if it will be ea...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Reprint of “Sequential organization of movement kinematics is associated with spatial orientation across scales and species”
Publication date: February 2018Source: Learning and Motivation, Volume 61Author(s): Douglas G. WallaceAbstractA large part of an animals’ behavioral repertoire involves non-conditioned or spontaneously occurring behaviors (e.g., exploration, food hoarding, food protection, food handling). These behaviors are highly organized sequences of movement. In general, these movement sequences alternate between periods of fast linear speeds with little change in heading and periods of slow linear speeds with larger change in heading. This sequential organization or movement segmentation can be quantified as the correlation between...
Source: Learning and Motivation - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
