Teaching Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder Desire-Based Emotion Prediction and Cause.

This study aimed to expand current research in one area of perspective taking related to teaching children with autism spectrum disorder to predict others' emotions. The current study evaluated a behavioral teaching procedure on predicting and inferring the cause of emotions based on another's desires. The procedure included a training package including multiple-exemplar training, rules, modeling, prompting, and reinforcement across scenarios in which children with autism were asked to predict how others may feel given a met or unmet desire or nondesire. Three children with autism, who did not already demonstrate this skill at baseline, were included in the study and learned a repertoire of emotion prediction and cause that generalized to untrained novel scenarios. Generalization to situations in which it was necessary to apply information about another's desires during play activities was not observed until direct in-vivo training was implemented. Future directions and implications of this research are discussed.

The Diversity Is in the Details: Unintentional Language Discrimination in the Practice of Applied Behavior Analysis.

Individuals with limited English proficiency face more challenges accessing applied behavior analysis (ABA) than their English-speaking counterparts. Many federal and state laws have been enacted to ensure the civil rights of protected classes, and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, 2010) builds on those laws and explicitly establishes a cause of action (i.e., a basis to sue) against health care providers, including ABA providers, who discriminate against patients on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. A patient's language falls under the scope of national origin, and most health care providers, including behavior analysts who deliver ABA as medically necessary treatment, have a duty to ensure that patients who are Limited English Proficient (LEP) have the same access to the provider's services as English-speaking patients. Knowledge of this provision of the ACA is critical to its compliance and, more importantly, to ensuring that behavior analysts rise to the challenge that the goal of true diversity represents. Note: Many terms are used interchangeably to describe insurance carriers, insurance issuers, health plans, and managed care organizations, as well as practitioners of applied behavior analysis. In this article, insurance carriers, insurance issuers, health plans, and managed care organizations are referred to as payors, and practitioners of applied behavior analysis are referred to as behavior analysts or ABA providers.

Teaching children with autism to identify and respond appropriately to the preferences of others during play.

We observed three children with autism spectrum disorder during structured play dates in which play partners displayed interest or disinterest in the toys with which they were playing. We then taught subjects to identify play partners' preferences and to make appropriate toy offers using a multiple-exemplar training package consisting of rules, midplay preference questions, prompting, and praise with observed generalization across untrained partners.

Brief report: An evaluation of TAGteach components to decrease toe-walking in a 4-year-old child with autism.

The current study evaluated the effectiveness of using a modified TAGteach procedure and correction to decrease toe-walking in a 4-year-old boy with autism. Two conditions were analyzed: correction alone and correction with an audible conditioned reinforcing stimulus. Correction alone produced minimal and inconsistent decreases in toe-walking but correction with an audible conditioned stimulus proved most effective in reducing this behavior. This has implications for decreasing toe-walking in other children with autism and may be easily used by teachers and parents.