Evaluation of response interruption and redirection on vocal stereotypy

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

2015

First Committee Member

Ahearn, William H.

Second Committee Member

Hanley, Gregory

Third Committee Member

Karsten, Amanda

Abstract

"Stereotypy is thought to be maintained by the sensory consequences produced by engaging in the behavior (Lovaas, Newsom, & Hickman, 1987; Rapp & Vollmer, 2005) which means the variable of which the behavior is a function is not directly accessible. Response interruption and redirection (RIRD), a variation on response blocking, has been the focus of many studies examining treatment for automatically-maintained behavior such as stereotypy. Studies on response blocking and RIRD as a treatment for automatically maintained problem behavior have examined blocking at various levels of integrity and observed continued suppression of responding under diminished integrity with some, but not all participants (Lerman & Iwata, 1996; Smith, Russo, & Le, 1999;Ahrens, Lerman, Kodak, Worsdell, & Keegan, 2011). The purpose of the current study was to assess RIRD at two levels of procedural integrity (full integrity and diminished integrity) in order to determine whether the less intrusive procedure suppresses vocal stereotypy as well as full implementation of RIRD. Three children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder between the ages of 8 and 16 years old participated in the study. The effect of procedural integrity on levels of stereotypy was assessed using an ABAB-variant design in which the B component was an alternating treatments comparison of the different levels of procedural integrity. Results varied across participants, but generally showed the full integrity condition more rapidly suppressed vocal stereotypy."

This document is available upon request to Western New England University faculty, students, and staff. Please contact D'Amour Library at for access.

Share

COinS