Association for Behavior Analysis International

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disability that can cause significant social, nonverbal communication, and behavioral challenges. There is often nothing about how people with ASD look that sets them apart from other people. They may, however, communicate, interact, behave, and learn in ways that are different from most other people. Because there is no definitive medical test, diagnosing ASD can be difficult. Research has shown that intervention can improve a child’s overall development and the earlier it occurs, the more effective it may be. In this symposium, we introduce a diagnostic tool designed to improve a very early diagnosis of autism. The tool is informed by extensive research on the Model of Hierarchical Complexity, a behavioral developmental model of tasks. The Model allows for the scaling of behaviors, tasks, reinforcers, stimuli, etc. in terms of their Hierarchical Complexity, a form of difficulty. This kind of scaling explains developmental sequences. The symposium first describes the Behavioral Developmental Autism Instrument, including how it was devised, how the data is being collected, and comparison to other assessments. The second paper illustrates how the Model of Hierarchical Complexity can be used to generate a developmental sequence of reinforcers. The third paper applies the model to curriculum development.

People who are interested in knowing more about how a Developmental approach can be added to a Behavior Analytic Approach, including how to find out with what behavior(s) to begin an intervention, what behavioral stage a child is behaving at, how to select developmentally appropriate reinforcers and other related topics.

Operant conditioning procedures are used to investigate various developmental emotional and socialization processes (e.g., Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992). The choice of what reinforcers to use has been conducted in somewhat of an ad hoc manner. This presentation introduces a way to scale reinforcers in terms of their likely effectiveness for children at different behavioral stages of development. Reinforcers are scaled in terms of their complexity using the Model of Hierarchical Complexity. This model applies a mathematically based scale to different tasks and behaviors (including reinforcing events). A brief example would be that for some children perhaps only a food-based reinforcer would work. For another saying “Good job” would work. Testing this model, we have generated an ordered list of reinforcers. This can be used with individual children to ascertain which specific reinforcers are effective for each particular child. Ultimately it will provide a list of a large number of reinforcing events that may be effective when working with a wide range of children. We are in the process of testing it out and are looking for collaborators who can help us shortlist the reinforcers.