Reducing Response Effort to Improve Employee Preparedness in a Human Service Organization.

We examined the effectiveness of reducing response effort and an e-mail prompt for increasing preparedness of 17 therapists for a social skills group in a human services organization. We evaluated whether participants knew the correct lession and sport and whether they felt prepared for the session via a paper survey. The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services indicated deficiencies in all four domains. The most significant barriers were prompts and access to materials. Results showed that the reduced response effort to access materials and email prompt increased employee preparedness compared to the no e-mail condition.

Teaching children with autism to tact private events based on public accompaniments.

We evaluated a method for teaching children with autism spectrum disorder to respond to tactile stimulation of multiple body parts. Various objects (e.g., hairbrush) produced the sensations (e.g., prickly). In a multiple baseline design across participants, participants learned 9 sensation body part tacts and the evaluation concluded with tests of generalization to 3 novel body parts, 6 novel objects, and 3 novel sensations. Participants demonstrated generalization to novel objects, and to a lesser extent, novel body parts, but did not generalize tacts to novel sensations. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for teaching children with autism to tact sensations.