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| Developmental Disabilities |
| Sunday, May 30, 2004 |
| 3:00 PM–3:50 PM |
| Constitution B |
| Area: DDA |
| Chair: Veronica Armellino (St. Joseph's Children's Hospital) |
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| Assessing Children's Food Preferences across Graduated Levels of Exposure |
| Domain: Applied Research |
| VERONICA ARMELLINO (St. Joseph's Children's Hospital), Merrill J. Berkowitz (St. Joseph's Children's Hospital), Peggy S. Eicher (St. Joseph's Children's Hospital) |
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| Abstract: Exposure has been found to be an important factor in the development of food preferences in children exhibiting food selectivity (Berkowitz et al., 2003). The use of positive reinforcement and escape extinction procedures is commonly used to increase the consumption of a wider variety of foods in children exhibiting food selectivity (Ahearn et al., 1996). The paired-stimulus assessment (Fisher et al., 1992) has been found to be a stable and valid method for identifying relative preferences among stimuli. Few studies have examined the effects of behavioral interventions and graduated exposure on children’s food preferences. The current study will examine a child’s food preferences to 16 foods as exposure to these foods increases. One child admitted to an intensive day treatment program for the assessment and treatment of food selectivity and limited oral intake participated in the study. A series of paired-stimulus assessments were conducted during the course of the study. During each successive assessment the contingencies were modified to increase the participant’s exposure to these foods. The effects of the final intervention on the child’s food preferences were assessed using a withdrawal design. Limitations of the study, implications of these results and directions for future research will be discussed. |
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| Severe Aggression to Others, Self, and Property: When is that Operant Behavior? |
| Domain: Applied Research |
| STEPHEN PAUL MYERS (Alabama Dept of Mental Health/Mental Retardation), Ruth M. Ryan (The Community Circle) |
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| Abstract: Prior to the advent of functional analysis as an assessment process, fledgling behavior analysts were told to ensure that there were not medical reasons for target behavior before beginning an intervention. Also during this time, systematic desensitization, a respondent intervention, emerged as the intervention of choice for the extreme levels of anxiety associated with phobias. The authors assessed thirty-one of the most behaviorally challenged persons receiving services from developmental centers, mental hospitals and community settings within the referral area. Target behavior for this group of individuals generally consisted of severe aggression to others, self, and property. All of these individuals were diagnosed with an intellectual disability and a mental illness. Prior evaluations across many years supposedly eliminated medical and psychiatric causes for the target behaviors. The extreme high frequency of untreated medical and psychiatric conditions discovered in the re-evaluation and their contribution to the target behavior will be discussed. Factors that should alert the behavior analyst and other interdisciplinary team members to untreated medical and psychiatric conditions will be described. Strategies the team can use to improve medical and psychiatric assessment and subsequent treatment will also be discussed. |
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