Promoting Choice Using Switches in People With Severe Disabilities: A Case Report

Abstract

People with severe intellectual disabilities have a remarkably high risk of spending most of their lifetime without the possibility of engaging their surroundings. This study aimed to verify if it is possible to teach operant and choice behaviours for autonomus managment of leisure activity throught switches to people with severe intellectual disabilities. A two-switches training program was implemented following three subsequent steps: (1) switch pressure learning; (2) choice behavior learning (Level 1: choices between preferred and non-preferred stimuli; Level 2: choices between preferred and neutral stimuli); (3) subjective satisfaction. A single subject (N=1) multiple probe design, using intermittent probe sessions across behaviors, demonstrated experimental control. Results confirm the effectiveness of training in promoting both repertoires of switch pressure and choice behavior. The response rate and accuracy were statistically significant ( r range: .83–.99). The study shed light on the possibility of autonomous activity management through switches for persons with severe intellectual disabilities.

A Behavioral Approach to Treatment and Assessment of People with Disorders of Consciousness: The Response-contingent Stimulation Strategy

“…The data reported by the studies using responsecontingent stimulation as a treatment strategy seem to be highly encouraging as to the effectiveness of this strategy to help MCS patients to increase their responding and learn to use such responding to control environmental stimulation. It may be interesting to note that these data are in line with data reported by studies involving people with extensive intellectual and multiple disabilities (i.e., people sharing a variety of behavioral and functional characteristics with MCS patients) [93,[106][107][108][109][110]. Working to allow the patient to control environmental stimulation may be more beneficial than making the patient rely on others for stimulation.…”

ICT Framework for Supporting Applied Behavior Analysis in the Social Inclusion of Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders

“…In the last decade, ABA experiments have increasingly involved persons with severe/profound multiple disabilities, and among the most commonly adopted ICTs, it is worth mentioning the following: microswitches, VOCAs, and microswitch clusters [ 78 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 , 83 ].…”