This study aims to examine the effect of the Effective Reinforcement Use Parent Education Program, which was developed for parents with children with autism spectrum disorder. The program was based on scientific-based practices and developed to ensure that children exhibit positive behaviors, increase and generalize these behaviors. The…

Functional communication training, an intervention for challenging behavior rooted in principles of applied behavior analysis, has copious empirical support dating back to the mid-1980s for autistic individuals. Recently, there has been a concerted effort to thin reinforcement delivery during functional communication training using…

Objective: This retrospective case study of an eight year old female with autism illuminates how alteration of the training environment using florescent objects under blacklight conditions, may have been the facilitating impetus that increased her interaction with objects over time. Methods: This study approach was chosen to best correspond with…

In response to the growing necessity for considering the cultural and contextual needs of youth with disabilities in experimental studies, this study examines the effectiveness of an intervention package consisting of video prompting with a system of least prompts and reinforcement on Korean American adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.…

This study examined the impact of culturally focused classroom staff training on delivery of praise and its collateral effects on student on-task behavior. Training involved self-monitoring and performance feedback to promote staff delivery of culturally adapted praise to students. Four classroom staff and four students with autism spectrum…

Functional communication training (FCT) is a common function-based intervention for young children with or at risk for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to teach an alternative communicative response to replace problem behavior. While FCT is effective in decreasing problem behavior, often the communicative behavior that is taught occurs at a higher…

We examined the effects of reinforcement magnitude on skill acquisition during discrete-trial training. After conducting a magnitude preference assessment, we compared acquisition during conditions with large and small magnitudes of edible reinforcement to a praise-only condition. Although all participants showed a preference for the…

We used an adapted alternating treatments design to compare skill acquisition during discrete-trial instruction using immediate reinforcement, delayed reinforcement with immediate praise, and delayed reinforcement for 2 children with autism spectrum disorder. Participants acquired the skills taught with immediate reinforcement; however, delayed…

Drowning is a leading cause of unintentional death among children worldwide. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at higher risk for incidents of drowning then their non-disabled peers. Mastering water safety skills, such as underwater submersion, has been associated with a decreased risk for incidents of drowning. Using a combined…

In today's autistic-support classrooms, paraeducators are tasked with working with our neediest students yet report that they are unprepared for their roles despite attempts at training. The special education teachers who are tasked with coaching and supervising several paraeducators at a time in their classrooms report that they too are…

Using contingent praise is a proactive strategy for increasing on-task behaviors in special education classrooms. Although there is large body of literature supporting the use of praise to decrease challenging behaviors and increase desirable behaviors, a consensus on how much praise is needed has yet to be reached. In an effort to identify…

Effectively managing a classroom is crucial in promoting positive student outcomes. Behavior-specific praise is an empirically supported strategy to reinforce desirable student behaviors. Following a review of the literature, we identified tactile prompting and self-monitoring as effective methods to increase teachers' use of behavior-specific…

Social skills training programs have increasingly enlisted same-age typical peers as instructors in the teaching of social skills to children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The inclusion of peers in the teaching process has been found to be a critical component in these programs. Despite strong support for incorporating…

For years, the assumption has been that stereotypical behaviors functioned only to provide sensory or automatic reinforcement. However, these behaviors also may serve social functions. Given the unsettled debate, functional behavior assessment and functional analysis can be used to identify the exact function of stereotypical behavior and design…

Learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other disabilities should have access to the general education curriculum with their typically developing peers. Common barriers to inclusion can be addressed, in part, through effective in-service training on evidence-based practices (EBP). The purpose of this research was to assess the effects of…