Nesrhten……….

Knowledge and access to preferred stimuli are necessary for implementing effective teaching for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). The stimuli preferred by children with ASD are often different from the preferred stimuli of typically developing children. As one of the main goals of early intervention for children with ASD is to teach skills necessary to learn in typical environments – preference for social interaction may be critical. Neurnberger and colleagues have published a study where they conducted a multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment to determine a hierarchy of preference for the interactions and conduction a reinforcer assessment.

Based on this study the authors found that the preference assessment was predictive for the reinforcer assessment, that most social interactions assessed functioned as reinforcers, and that the lower referred interactions also functioned as reinforcers.

Sensory integration therapy has been described as a treatment for autism spectrum disorders, but the scientific basis for these treatments have been a topic of discussion. Now researchers from the US, New Zealand, Italy, Netherlands and Ireland have conducted a systematic review over the research on Sensory integration therapy (SIT). Based on their review that conclude that;

“Practioners and agencies serving children with ASD that endeavor, or are mandated, to use reserach-based, or scientifically-based, interventions should not use SIT outside of carefully controlled research.”

Reference;
Russell Lang, Mark O’Reilly, Olive Healy, Mandy Rispoli, Helena Lydon, William Streusand, Tonya Davis, Soyeon Kang, Jeff Sigafoos, Giulio Lancioni, Robert Didden, Sanne Giesbers, Sensory integration therapy for autism spectrum disorders: A systematic review, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, Volume 6, Issue 3, July–September 2012, Pages 1004-1018, ISSN 1750-9467, 10.1016/j.rasd.2012.01.006.

Transition to independence and work life is an important phase for adolescents with developmental disabilities, and services should address the skills needed in students every day life after completing school. These skills need to be established at a level that ensures longterm knowledge and use.

Lee and Singer-Dudek have examined the effect of fluency training vs accuracy training for 4 adolescents with developmental disabilities in vocational skills. Fluency training has been shown to increase retention of skills, promote generalization and application, enhance endurance, stability and faster learning go more complex skills in academic areas. Based on their study Lee and Singer Dudek found that fluency training resulted in better endurance and retention than accuracy training.

This support the notion that fluency training may be an effective intervention especially in establishing vocational skills that students with developmental disabilities is expected to be using for longer periods of time and without the assistance and reinforcer-delivery of staff.

Both Video Feedback and In Vivo Self-Monitoring has been used to improve social interactions for children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders. State and Kern have published a study comparing the effectiveness and user satisfaction of these two procedures. In their study they found that in vivo self-monitoring were the most effective end preferred. This study included just one participants so the results may not be transferable to other children and settings.

Children with autism spectrum disorders display deficits in joint attention, which may affect areas such as language, regulation and perspective-taking. In the recent years there has been a lot of focus on joint attention interventions for children with autism. According to Lawton and Kasari (2012) the main focus in this research has been on increasing the quantity of joint attention for young children with autism. Now Lawton and Kasari have investigated if the quantitative effect of a recent published randomized-controlled study also improved the quality of joint attention for those children.

Based on the review of these results the researchers found improvement also in the quality of joint attention, based on increases in the frequency of shared positive affect during joint attention as well as shared positive affect with utterances during joint attention. Positive affect during joint attention was understood as the child directing a smile towards the adult during joint attention.

Interventions has to target all relevant aspects of behavior, such as frequency, intensity, quality etc. It is essential with research investigating all relevant aspects.

Children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are often reported to spend a lot of time engaged in screen based media, such as TV, computers and video games. But there are not a lot of research done in investigating this issue. Now Mazurek and colleagues have investigated this in the sample of the NAtional Longitudal Transition Study – 2. This study confirms the general perception that individuals with ASD spend more time using non-social screen media than others.

There has been a lot of stories and publicity on using iPads for persons with autism since Apple started selling this device. A lot of success stories is put out, but all such personal stories need to be supported by research in order to allow professionals and policy makers to make good decisions on implementing the use of different technologies. Now more research on the use of iPad is beefing published, and now Flores and colleagues from Auburn University have published a study comparing the use of iPad and picture based communication for children with autism.

Their study shows mixed results, but within these results there are also some promising results. It will be great to see more research on this, and maybe more research will show that the science applied to teach the communication may be more important than the actual technology.

Perspective-taking is a relatively new field within Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), but there are more research on this field published now. Perspective-taking has been mostly investigated within Relational Frame Theory (RFT). According to RFT perspective taking is derived relational responding within the dietetic frames of I-You, Here-There, and Now-Then. This responding has to be both simple, reversed and double reversed.

Much of the research on perspective-taking have been using the Barnes-Holmes protocol, witch have shown to be a useful approach. But this protocol is highly structured, and may not be easily implemented into every day teaching. Now Dalvin, Rehfeld and Lovett have published a study in European Journal of Behavior Analysis using common Children´s stories to teach this kind of relational responding. Their study shows promising results using these common Children´s stories, and provide a framework of teaching perspective taking with in more naturalistic setting.