Bringing leisure initiation under control of natural environmental cues

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

2021

First Committee Member

Bancroft, Stacie L.

Second Committee Member

Ahearn, William H.

Third Committee Member

Henley, Amy J.

Abstract

"This study evaluates a procedure for teaching independent initiation of leisure by transferring stimulus control from vocal directives to natural environmental contexts in which initiating leisure would be appropriate and beneficial. A combination of multiple probe and reversal designs was used to demonstrate methods for teaching leisure initiation to three adolescents with a diagnosis of autism residing in residential group homes who attended a school for special education and applied behavior analytic treatment. For each participant, we targeted two contextual pairs: a structured context (when a structured activity was already in place and leisure initiation was not appropriate) and an unstructured context (when no structured activity was in place and initiation of leisure was appropriate). A least-to-most prompting strategy was implemented to transfer stimulus control from verbal directives to the unstructured context. Following training, all three participants demonstrated increases in independent initiation of leisure in unstructured settings of both contextual pairs."

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