Subtyping and Treatment of Restrictive Interests and Repetitive Behavior in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

Fall 2023

First Committee Member

Roscoe, Eileen M.

Second Committee Member

Thompson, Rachel H.

Abstract

Hagopian, Rooker, and Zarcone (2015) evaluated a model for subtyping and predicting effective treatment methods for automatically reinforced self-injurious behavior (SIB). It may be the case that this subtyping model could be extended to the treatment of other topographies of automatically maintained challenging behavior, including stereotypy and other forms of repetitive behavior like arranging and ordering. To date, only one study has examined automatically maintained arranging and ordering, which is classified as higher-level repetitive behavior (Rodriguez et al., 2012). The purpose of the current study was to replicate and extend Rodriguez et al. (2012) while applying Hagopian et al. (2015/2017) subtyping analysis to arranging and ordering to predict whether treatment would require more than alternative sources of reinforcement in the environment. Competing stimuli, identified through an augmented competing stimulus assessment (A-CSA; Hagopian et al., 2020), were identified to inform treatment. Following a treatment analysis wherein access to competing stimuli decreased arranging and ordering, generalization probes were conducted. Interobserver agreement (IOA) data were collected across at least 30% of all sessions, conditions, measures, and ranged from 80%-100%. Results suggest that subtyping did not serve as a predictive behavioral marker for this instance of automatically maintained repetitive behavior. It is also possible that the A-CSA is a more effective method for identifying competing stimuli than selecting items that seem to match the sensory stimulation produced by engaging in arranging and ordering.

This document is available upon request to Western New England University faculty, students, and staff. Please contact D'Amour Library at dref@wne.edu for access.

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