The purpose of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to synthesize the available research on the "Skills for Social and Academic Success" ("SASS") program, a school-based cognitive/behavioural intervention for adolescents with social anxiety disorder. A search of online databases, combined with reference list examination…

This article presents an individual intervention combining cognitive-behavioral and behavior-analytic approaches to target severe emotion dysregulation in verbal youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) concurrent with intellectual disability (ID). The article focuses on two specific individuals who received the treatment within a therapeutic…

Social deficits are a core characteristic of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and co-occurring intellectual disabilities (ASD-ID). Despite persistence of these deficits into adolescence, few social skills interventions have been empirically evaluated for older individuals with ASD-ID. The present investigation adapted an efficacious…

Preliminary studies evaluating dialectical behavior therapy with adolescents have obtained promising outcomes. This multimodal therapy includes telephone consultation for adolescents and for their family members to help ensure generalization of skills from the therapy office to their natural environments. Telephone contact with the DBT therapist…

When injections are necessary, young people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) may exhibit responses that compromise their health care. Parents often report that their children with ASD struggle or attempt to flee when immunizations or other injections are attempted. This report describes our evaluation of procedures that enable children to…

A procedure involving the intermittent presentation of timeout, restraint, and blindfolding produced complete suppression of self-slapping in a profoundly retarded adolescent. A variable ratio two schedule of time-out and physical restraint contingencies was effective in reducing and maintaining a low level of self-abusive behavior. (Author)

The paper proposes a model which combines traditional metacognitive explanations for the acquisition of social skills in behaviorally disordered adolescents with situationally specific environment variables. Research is reported suggesting that newly learned social skills may not generalize to a wider variety of real life situations because social…

Findings indicate that the effects of assertion training generalized to novel teacher, parent, and student situations and to the in vivo test. Structured learning training with teacher trainers produced more assertive behavior in teacher situations. Performance was differentially affected by type of participant. (Author)

Two children (ages 13 and 16) with autism were taught to differentiate appropriate from inappropriate social behaviors. Children's treated behaviors improved rapidly, and there were generalized changes in untreated social behaviors. Results suggest the possibility of identifying pivotal response classes of social behavior that may improve peer…

A forward graduated guidance procedure was used to increase the independent dressing skills of two profoundly multihandicapped adolescents living in a noninstitutional environment. One subject reached criterion and treatment gains generalized to other settings. The other subject failed to reach criterion but required fewer prompts after training.…

Two experiments to replicate P. E. Touchette's findings on the delayed prompt effect, with 34 subjects having mental retardation, found more variable results, with all five of the possible outcomes occurring with some subjects. The paper concludes that successful use of the delayed prompt technique depends on such factors as difficulty of target…

Reports on a study addressing two issues: (1) the impact of problem-solving and communication skills training on the conflict-related behavior of parents and their young adolescent children; and (2) the additive effect of homework and session discussions designed to enhance generalized use and impact of skills in the home setting. (CMG)

Prompting, positive and negative reinforcement, and a gradually extended reinforcement schedule were used with three autistic clients (two six-year-olds and one adolescent) to teach them to maintain on-task behaviors without constant supervision. Results indicated that appropriate behavior could be successfully maintained with only infrequent and…

A severely disabled and retarded 15-year-old girl was examined for: effect of music and approval as reinforcers for following a command; effect of a food-pairing procedure on an approval alone condition, an approval plus music condition, and an ignore condition; durability of newly conditioned reinforcers; and strength of the new reinforcers as…

A study of 4 youths (ages 11-18) with autism examined the effectiveness of teaching appropriate affective behavioral responses. Participants were described by teachers as having flat and inappropriate affect. Treatment consisted of modeling, prompting, and reinforcement. The combination of an error-correction procedure and contingent delivery of…