Stimulus complexity and autistic children's responsivity: Assessing and training a pivotal behavior

Abstract

Interdisciplinary research suggests that autistic children's limitations in responding to environmental stimuli may be directly related to the number of components contained in the stimuli; as the number of components increases, such children hypothetically would exhibit greater difficulties in responding. The central purpose of this experiment was to assess whether such children indeed exhibit greater difficulties in responding as the number of components contained in an environmental stimulus was increased from one to four. If the children's responsivity was a function of stimulus complexity, a second focus of this experiment was to assess the feasibility of teaching them to respond to a complex environmental stimulus containing up to four components and to determine whether the effects of the intervention would generalize to other situations involving complex structured and social stimuli. Data gathered using a multiple baseline design across behaviors and children indicate that all of the children exhibited fewer correct responses to a stimulus as the number of stimulus components was increased from one to four. The results further showed that the training program used in this investigation was effective in producing some generalized increases in the children's responses to complex structured and social stimuli. Conceptualizing autistic children's responses to complex multicomponent stimuli as a pivotal target behavior that can be operationally defined may have important implications for understanding and altering the children's responsivity and development.

Reduction of Stimulus Overselectivity With Nonverbal Differential Observing Responses

“…In cases in which sample stimuli are pictures, nonverbal compound DORs like those described in this paper could help to eliminate overselective stimulus control by isolated features of the pictures (e.g., for the DOR, a sample picture of brown loafers, with comparison pictures of brown loafers, black loafers, and brown oxfords; cf. Burke & Cerniglia, 1990;Rosenblatt, Bloom, & Koegel, 1995;Schreibman, 1997). When the sample stimuli are printed words, nonverbal DORs could be programmed by inserting printed-word identity-matching trials in which the incorrect comparison stimuli have letters in common with the sample (e.g., sample HAT, with comparison stimuli HAT, CAT, HOT, and HAD).…”

Neurobiological mechanisms for nonverbal IQ tests: implications for instruction of nonverbal children with autism

“…Improving mental integration has been shown to reduce stimulus overselectivity, which in turn leads to vast improvements in general learning (Burke and Cerniglia 1990). Currently, training a child to overcome stimulus overselectivity by developing responsivity to multiple cues is provided by language therapists who structure the natural environment in such a way that a child must use his/her lateral PFC to integrate multiple cues.…”

Matrix Training for Expressive and Receptive Two-Word Utterances in Children With Autism

“…, children with language delay (Mineo & Goldstein, 1990), and children with autism (Yamamoto & Miya, 1999 (Ezell & Goldstein, 1989;Goldstein, 1983;Goldstein et al, 1987;Goldstein & Mousetis, 1989 (Hedbring & Newsom, 1985;Koegel & Wilhelm, 1973;Kovattana & Kraemer, 1974;Sonoyama & Kobayashi, 1986), auditory stimuli (Katoh & Kobayashi, 1985 (Edwards, Shigley, & Edwards, 1976;Lovaas & Schreibman, 1971 (Burke & Cerniglia, 1990;Koegel, Bimbela, & Schreibman, 1996;Koegel, Koegel, & Harrower, 1999 (Watamaki, 1979;Yoshida, 1975 (Cuvo & Riva, 1980;Ezell & Goldstein, 1989;Guess & Baer, 1973;Lee, 1981;Mcllvane, Bass, O'Brien, Gerovac, & Stoddard, 1984;Mineo & Goldstein, 1990 (Cuvo & Riva, 1980;Guess & Baer, 1973;Lee, 1981;Mcllvane, Bass, O'Brien, Gerovac, 8t Stoddard, 1984), Lee (1981) ::.…”