Association for Behavior Analysis International

Upon increased awareness for evidence-based treatment in autism among caregivers, needs for ABA service in Korea have drastically escalated. Yet, qualified professionals are scarce and service materials are extremely limited. Our team has continuously worked on establishing an evidence-based assessment and treatment materials for the past 10 years. In this symposium, we are presenting research findings on newly developed assessment instruments for measuring the functions of problem behaviors, and social-perception ability. In addition, results and implications from 2 treatment outcome studies, a behavioral parenting program for decreasing problem behaviors and an app-based application program for improving social ability, will be shared. Specific details on developing and conducting research projects related to this topic will be beneficial to future researchers and clinicians.

BCaBA, BCBA, BCBA-D

Deficits of social communication seen in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can be explained by a lack of social skills and the inability to perceive faces. Although ABA can be used to improve social skills of children with ASD, limitations exist in terms of cost, accessibility, and effectiveness. The aim of this study was to develop and test the effectiveness of "Yface," a cost-effective and highly accessible evidence-based program. "Yface" consists of tasks that are designed to improve eye-contact, face perception and social cognition. Fifth-three high-functioning ASD children participated in the study and were randomly assigned to three groups: a social training ("Yface"), a cognitive training ("Ycog") and a control (waiting) group. The two training groups trained through the program for 10-15 minutes per day for 12 weeks, whereas the waiting group received usual care. Computerized cognitive tasks, the Faux-Pas test, behavioral observation, and an interview and surveys were conducted as pre- and post- assessments. A repeated measure ANOVA was used for data analysis. Result showed that the "Yface" group reported enhanced social reactivity, communication and face perception compared to the "Ycog" group and the waiting group. This indicates that the "Yface" program is effective in improving social cognition of children with ASD. Further efforts are needed for the implementation and dissemination of the program.

Autism spectrum disorders(ASD) are characterized by significant difficulties in emotion recognition, but the evidence-based assessment tool for this impairment is limited. Yonsei Mindreading Face Battery(Y-CAM) is developed to test subtle emotion recognition, including 113 facial stimuli video clips which has been modified to match Korean culture based on the Cambridge Mindreading Face Battery. The purpose of this study is to establish differential validity of the Y-CAM in detecting subtle emotion recognition in ASD on samples of adolescents with ASD and typically developing(TD) adults. In experiment 1, 60 adolescents with ASD completed 3 tasks consisting of Y-CAM, the Autism Quotient (AQ), and the Social Skills Improvement System(SSIS), whereas 121 TD adults completed 5 tasks consisting of Y-CAM, AQ, SSIS, Beck Depression Inventory(BDI) and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory(STAI). The results showed a significant positive correlation between Y-CAM and SSIS among ASD adolescents, while Y-CAM was significantly negatively correlated with AQ among TD adults. In experiment 2, youths with ASD were divided into 2 groups upon their ages and the accuracy of Y-CAM were compared. The results showed that children aged 5-10 showed significantly lower accuracy of emotion perception than adolescents aged 11-17. These results suggest that the Y-CAM is a sensitive tool to detect emotion recognition ability in both ASD adolescents and adults.

Problem behaviors such as physical aggression, self-injury, defiance, stereotypy, and disruption are major barriers to the children and adolescents' social development and their parents' quality of life. Behavioral parent training (BPT) is one of the empirically supported interventions for improving problem behaviors and promoting effective parenting. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of behavioral parent training (BPT) on reducing problem behaviors for youths with developmental disabilities (DD). Twenty-five parents of youths with DD participated in a BPT program for 12 weeks. Data on parent's quality of life, knowledge of behavior principles, parenting efficacy, parenting stress and depression were collected before and after the training. Parents also recorded frequency and severity of the target problem behaviors of their offspring. Paired t-test showed significant improvement on all dependent variables after the training. Bootstrapping, a computational nonparametric technique for "re-sampling," enables researchers to draw a conclusion about the characteristics of a population strictly from the existing sample rather than by making parametric assumptions about the estimator. Bootstrapping was used to compare the confidence intervals of the mean severity of problem behavior before and after training. The results showed that 64%(16 out of 25) youth showed significant reduction of their problem behaviors after the BPT training program, suggesting the BPT as an effective method to treat problem behaviors.

The purpose of this study is to compare the identified functions of problem behaviors between teachers and day program staff for persons with developmental disabilities (DD). 15 teachers (aged 23-57; 5 teachers completed two questionnaires; N = 20) and 25 staff members (aged 20-45; N = 25) who works for the DD population (aged 8-43) participated in this study. They completed one or two Functional Assessment for Challenging/Problem Behaviors (FAPB: Chung, Kim & Chung, 2017) questionnaires to evaluate the function of the problem behaviors of clients they work with. The FAPB is a 24-item scale used to identify 6 functions of problem behaviors (demand, self-stimulation, physical state, obsession and control, avoidance, attention) and its psychometric properties were well established. An independent t-test was conducted to determine the differences the FAPB scores of each function between teachers and staff. As a result, there was a significant difference only in the 'obsession and control' function and there were no significant differences in the other functions. This result suggests possible differences in perception of the function of problem behaviors across informants. Further implications and limitations of this study are discussed.