Comparison of methods to assess preference for work activities with an individual diagnosed with autism and an intellectual disability

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

2014

First Committee Member

Hanley, Gregory

Second Committee Member

Sassi, Jessica

Third Committee Member

Thompson, Rachel

Abstract

"My purpose was to discover the most reliable, sensitive, and ecologically-valid method for determining preferences for work activities with a 19-year-old female with autism. The initial experiment focused on format and measurement. Sessions were conducted in a single presentation format in which various work activities were available singly for a 5-min period or in a response restriction format where all activities were simultaneously available and then the activity selected was restricted following 5 min of interaction. Across conditions, item contact, functional engagement, and indices of happiness/unhappiness were measured. A reversal design showed that functional engagement within the response restriction format produced reliable and highly differentiated results across assessments. The second experiment assessed preference for work activities with and without the presence of differential reinforcement and prompting. A reversal design showed that relative preference among work and non-work activities was affected by the addition of instructional prompting and reinforcement for work products. Collectively, these results indicate that preference for work activities may be best assessed by measuring functional engagement within a response restriction format while differential reinforcement and prompting are provided."

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