Antecedent-Based Intervention PDF

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essay on antecedent-based interventions for ASD...

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Intervention Write Up Sara Ramsey SPCE 292 S 800 27 January 2018

According to Evidence-Based Practices for Children, Youth, and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders, Antecedent-based Intervention (ABI) refers to altering a student’s immediate environment in an attempt to change their behavior. This intervention requires first determining the purpose of the undesired behavior along with the environmental conditions that stimulated that behavior. By determining the stimulus, a plan can be implemented to remove the stimulus from the student’s environment thus eliminating the undesired behavior. Antecedentbased Intervention is most effective in toddlers up to 2 years of age as well as young adults aged 19-22 with Autism Spectrum Disorder. ABI may lead to positive outcomes in several areas such as social, behavior, cognition, motor, and adaptive skills. ABI can occur within many different strategies such as modifying educational activities and allowing the student to choose those activities, letting them prepare ahead of time to transition between activities, altering the format or structure of those activities, adding visual or other sensory cues and allowing access to additional materials, and adding reinforcement schedules to increase a desired behavior (Wong, Odom, Hume, Cox, Fettig, Kucharczyk, Brock, Plavnick, Fleury, Schultz 55). For example, if a student proceeds to throw a tantrum when the teacher abruptly transitions between lessons in class, it would be a helpful strategy for the teacher to give notice ahead of time in order to give the student time to prepare for the transition. It might also help if the teacher gave them a choice as to which lesson to transition to, such as science or reading, and provided a visual or sensory cue to further create a comfortable transition for the child. The National Standards Project: Phase 2 describes ABI as the modification of situational events that precede a target behavior, the modification thus decreasing the likelihood of those problems occurring. Much like the previous document, The NSP2 classifies this method of behavioral intervention an established intervention method for adults due to its result in the lack

of problem behaviors and simultaneous enhancement in social and communication skills, as well as cognitive skills. However, this document claims that this intervention strategy also leads to an enhancement in personal responsibility and self-regulation. Not only does ABI meet all evidence-based criteria according to the EBP report, but the NSP2 also recommends this established method due to the sufficient evidence that behavioral intervention produces beneficial effects with no negative outcomes for the individuals subjected to them (National Autism Center 76). Effects of Motivating Operations on Problem and Academic Behavior in Classrooms conducted a study which examined the effects of presession exposure to items maintaining problem behavior. The participants in this study included Terry, 5, and Rusty, 7, both boys with autism attending private schools for those with severe disabilities. A functional analysis concluded that Terry’s problem behavior occurred in the form of throwing objects while Rusty’s problem behavior occurred in the form of inappropriate vocalizations. Data was collected on an interval schedule for both problem behaviors and academic engagement. Each participant’s presession access to items included paper and crayons for Terry and a musical book for Rusty— both of these items being believed by their teachers to maintain problem behavior. When the students were not given presession access, these items were not present for at least 2 hours before the classroom session. During classroom sessions, it was reported that each participant’s problem behaviors were acted upon when the presession items were in sight but unavailable, despite praise being given on a fixed-interval schedule (Rispoli, O’Reilly, Lang, Machalicek, Davis, Lancioni, Sigafoos 2-3). The results of this study concluded that the participants’ problem behaviors occurred less frequently when they were given presession access to items, along with higher levels of

academic engagement during class time, than when they were not given presession access. The increase in academic engagement as a result of presession access was an unexpected yet positive side effect of the study. The reason for the increase is unclear, however it could possibly be due to the fact that after being exposed to these items for a lengthy period of time until eventually rejecting them, the participants became satiated and the items no longer posed as a distraction for them during class time. It is also assumed that the decrease in problem behavior allowed them to take more interested in the classroom materials given at their desks, thus allowing for higher levels of academic engagement (Rispoli, O’Reilly, Lang, Machalicek, Davis, Lancioni, Sigafoos 3, 5). As far as limitations to this study, the participants were not given task demands during presession access but were given them when they had no presession access. This one-sided manipulation could possibly have accounted for the differences in behavior for both Terry and Rusty. In other words, the additional presentation of demands could have increased the child’s motivation toward item interaction due to having been deprived of the items beforehand. For future research, it is recommended that task demands be given in both presession access and no presession access conditions in order to ensure total accuracy of the results. Another limitation is the fact that termination of presession access was based on satiation—the participant rejecting the item 3 times—rather than a specified length of time. Because of this, Terry remained in the presession access condition for 45 minutes before he became satiated rather than Rusty who remained in this condition for only 22 minutes. Further research recommends the presession access condition being based on only 1 rejection response rather than 3. Because class time consisted of only 20-minute sessions, it is still a question as to whether presession access is still effective over longer periods of time. As for more future research, it should also be studied how

long the effects of satiation last over a full day as well as whether similar results will be obtained by other forms of positive reinforcement or even negative reinforcement (Rispoli, O’Reilly, Lang, Machalicek, Davis, Lancioni, Sigafoos 5).

References National Autism Center. (2015). Findings and Conclusions: National Standards Project Phase 2. 1-92. Rispoli, M., Oreilly, M., Lang, R., Machalicek, W., Davis, T., Lancioni, G., & Sigafoos, J. (2011). Effects Of Motivating Operations On Problem And Academic Behavior In Classrooms. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 44(1), 187-192. doi:10.1901/jaba.2011.44-187 Wong, C., Odom, S. L., Hume, K. A., Cox, A. W., Fettig, A., Kucharczyk, S., . . . Schultz, T. R. (2015). Evidence-Based Practices for Children, Youth, and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Comprehensive Review. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45(7), 1951-1966. doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2351-z...