Assessing preference for and reinforcing efficacy of components of social interaction in individuals with autism spectrum disorder
Publication date: Available online 15 April 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Casey J. Clay, Andrew L. Samaha, Bistra K. Bogoev We 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 relat...
Source: Learning and Motivation - April 16, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Introduction to the special issue on applied behavior analysis
Publication date: Available online 14 April 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Brian D. Greer, Tiffany Kodak (Source: Learning and Motivation)
Source: Learning and Motivation - April 15, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Behavioral and neural subsystems of rodent exploration
Publication date: Available online 13 April 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Shannon M. Thompson, Laura E. Berkowitz, Benjamin J. Clark Animals 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 q...
Source: Learning and Motivation - April 13, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Sequential organization of movement kinematics is associated with spatial orientation across scales and species
Publication date: May 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 58 Author(s): Douglas G. Wallace A 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 linear ...
Source: Learning and Motivation - April 1, 2017 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 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Kathryn H. Stubbs, Valerie M. Volkert, Emily Kate Rubio, Elissa Ottinger For 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 de...
Source: Learning and Motivation - March 25, 2017 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 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Nathan A. Call, Seth B. Clark, Joanna Lomas Mevers, Natalie A. Parks, Valerie M. Volkert, Mindy C. Scheithauer Using 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 a...
Source: Learning and Motivation - March 24, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Reliability and validity of indirect assessment outcomes: Experts versus caregivers
Publication date: Available online 20 March 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Joseph D. Dracobly, Claudia L. Dozier, Adam M. Briggs, Jessica F. Juanico Clinicians 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 ...
Source: Learning and Motivation - March 22, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Social order: Using the sequential structure of social interaction to discriminate abnormal social behavior in the rat
We present a simple approach to the quantification of behavioral sequences that requires minimal additional analytical steps after individual behaviors are coded. We implement this approach to identify altered social behavior in rats exposed to alcohol during prenatal development, and show that the frequency of several pairwise sequences of behavior discriminate controls from ethanol-exposed rats when the frequency of individual behaviors involved in those sequences does not. Thus, the approach described here may be useful in detecting subtle deficits in the social domain and identifying neural circuits involved in the org...
Source: Learning and Motivation - March 22, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Nonlinear assessment of motor variability during practice and competition for individuals with different motivational orientations
Publication date: May 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation, Volume 58 Author(s): Breanna E. Studenka, Travis E. Dorsch, Natalie L. Ferguson, Cameron S. Olsen, Richard D. Gordin The aim of the present study was to document how differing motivational orientation profiles, situated within environmental constraints (i.e., a competitive and practice environments) influence the nonlinear variability of performance and subsequent retention of a visual motor tracking skill. Myriad research associates atypical nonlinear aspects of motor variability with pathology; however, few empirical efforts have explored the influence of ...
Source: Learning and Motivation - March 22, 2017 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: Available online 11 March 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): E.M. Anderson, M.L. McWaters, L.M. McFadden, L. Matuszewich The 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 ...
Source: Learning and Motivation - March 10, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Increasing sharing in children with autism spectrum disorder using automated discriminative stimuli
Publication date: Available online 11 March 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Ami J. Kaminski, Wayne W. Fisher, Brian D. Greer, Jessica S. Akers Appropriate 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 - March 10, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Further evaluation of blocked trials to teach intraverbal responses under complex stimulus control: Effects of criterion-level probes
Publication date: Available online 9 March 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Jennifer Haggar, Einar T. Ingvarsson, Emily C. Braun Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have deficient intraverbal repertoires. Ingvarsson, Kramer, Carp, Petursdottir, and Macias (2016) evaluated the use of a blocked-trial procedure to establish complex stimulus control over the intraverbal behavior of children with ASD. In the current study, we replicated the procedures of Ingvarsson et al. (2016) and added criterion-level probes. Three children with ASD, ages 7–13, participated. We targeted discriminations ...
Source: Learning and Motivation - March 9, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Homeward bound: The capacity of the food hoarding task to assess complex cognitive processes
Publication date: Available online 9 March 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Shawn S. Winter, Philip A. Blankenship, Max L. Mehlman Food 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 b...
Source: Learning and Motivation - March 9, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
Validation of a skills assessment to match interventions to teach motor imitation to children with autism
Publication date: Available online 10 March 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): Amber L. Valentino, Linda A. LeBlanc, Kerry A. Conde Motor 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 - March 9, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
A clinical application of procedures to promote the emergence of untrained intraverbal relations with children with autism
Publication date: Available online 24 February 2017 Source:Learning and Motivation Author(s): M. Alice Shillingsburg, Sarah E. Frampton, Stacy A. Cleveland, Tom Cariveau Strategies to promote the emergence of untrained verbal relations are of critical importance for learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study examined the effects of systematically training new relations on the emergence of intraverbal relations within the same set and across untrained sets using a multiple probe across behaviors design. Three sets consisting of three classes of stimuli were developed for each of the six participan...
Source: Learning and Motivation - February 26, 2017 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research
