Association for Behavior Analysis International

The current symposium includes four papers addressing the topic of preference and reinforcer assessments of social consequences. For the first paper, the presenter will describe a preference assessment procedure for identifying social consequences that may function as reinforcers in individuals with an autism spectrum disorder. The author will then review data on the use of the preferred social consequence for increasing joint attention skills. For the second paper, the presenter will review data on a progressive series of assessments for identifying various topographies of attention that may function as reinforcers. The author will also review test-retest reliability data across assessment procedures as well as data on outcome validity. For the third paper, the author will review data on the role of adult social interaction on participants relative preference for various leisure items. The presenter will also review data on the relative reinforcing efficacy of a high preference leisure item when adult interaction is and is not concurrently presented. For the forth paper, the presenter will review data on the reinforcing efficacy of a preferred social stimulus or edible following the presence versus absence of a presession exposure period.

We evaluated a procedure for identifying potential reinforcers with five individuals diagnosed with autism. We used a 1-min free-operant procedure where responses resulted in contingent presentation of a social consequence. Each participant was exposed to five different social consequences. Following the preference assessment we examined the reinforcing properties of preferred social stimuli by delivering them contingently on the occurrence of joint attention skills during a joint attention intervention. Results revealed that the preferred social stimuli produced higher rates of responding during the intervention than the baseline condition. These results suggest that the procedure can be used to assess social reinforcers for individuals with autism.

Although experimenters have compared assessment methods for identifying preferred tangible and edible items for children with developmental disabilities, few have evaluated assessment methods for identifying preferred topographies of attention. In the current study, we conducted indirect and descriptive assessments to identify eight topographies of attention to include in subsequent preference and reinforcer assessments. Next, we evaluated two different assessment methods until adequate stability was achieved with one of the methods. During both methods, a therapist presented photos depicting the topographies of attention included in the stimulus array, and a control photo (resulting in no consequence) was included. Following the assessment comparison, we conducted a reinforcer assessment using a socially relevant target behavior to determine the relative predictive validity of high- versus low-preference forms of attention. Interobserver agreement data was collected across a third of sessions and averaged above 90% for all responses. Results showed that the paired-stimulus method reliably identified relative preference and that both high and low preference topographies identified via this assessment format functioned as effective reinforcers in a subsequent reinforcer assessment. The single-stimulus assessment method identified reinforcers but didnt reliably indicate relative reinforcement effects. Implications for assessing topographies of attention will be discussed.

The types of items in a preference assessment array affect preference hierarchies and may cause false negative identification of stimuli that function as reinforcers (DeLeon, Iwata, & Roscoe, 1999). The purpose of the current study is to determine the effects of social interaction (e.g., adult interaction with participant/item during item access time) on (a) preference for leisure items and (b) response allocation to pre-academic tasks exhibited by typically developing, preschool-age children. In Study 1, three paired-stimulus preference assessments are conducted: (a) a solitary assessment (i.e., participant engages with items alone), (b) a social assessment (i.e., the participant engages with the items and accesses continuous social interaction), and (c) a combined assessment (i.e., both solitary and social options are available). Results suggest that the provision of social interaction causes shifts in preference hierarchies across assessments. In Study 2, concurrent-operant reinforcer assessments are conducted in which access to either a highly preferred (HP) item, the same HP item with continuous social interaction, or social interaction in isolation are provided contingent upon responding to a pre-academic task. Preliminary results suggest that participants allocate more responding to the HP item with continuous social interaction and social interaction in isolation than the HP item.

Previous research has shown that (a) presession access (continuous access) to a reinforcing stimulus can result in subsequent decreases in responding for that stimulus, whereas (b) no presession access to a reinforcing stimulus can result in subsequent increases in responding for that stimulus. The purpose of the current study was to replicate this finding and extend it by comparing the levels of subsequent responding after exposure to several different presession reinforcement contingencies including (a) no access, (b) continuous access, (c) contingent reinforcement, and (d) noncontingent reinforcement. Typically developing preschool-age children were provided different presession exposure to a preferred stimulus (either attention or food), then the level of responding on a pre-academic task to access that stimulus was determined. Results of the current study suggested that (a) all children initially preferred food over attention as a reinforcing stimulus and (b) no presession schedule of food access affected subsequent responding for food (i.e., the participants continued to respond to access food).