News and Knowledge

Researcher

Anibal Gutierrez, PhD, BCBA-D

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to develop and evaluate methods to best identify socially based reinforcers for children with ASD. This project will employ behaviorally based social reinforcer assessments that closely mirror assessments already established for the identification of non-social reinforcement. In addition, Dr. Gutierrez will evaluate the efficacy of novel reinforcement assessment procedures using eye-tracking equipment.

Why Is This Study Needed?

Traditionally, skill development programs for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have relied on the use of tangible non-social reinforcers due to the fact that many children with ASD do not find social consequences to be rewarding. However, it may be important to use socially based reinforcers to develop certain social skills, like joint attention.

Joint attention refers to the capacity to coordinate attention between objects and people in order to share experiences with others (e.g., pointing, showing, gaze shifting).

From a function-based, behavioral perspective, the development of social skills and joint attention may require the use of social reinforcement. In other words, in order for a child to share experiences with another person (joint attend), their behavior must be motivated by a social consequence.

Teaching similar topographies of behavior for non-social reinforcement (e.g., pointing to request a toy) does not represent a true instance of joint attention. Joint attention skills are an important hallmark of early development; have been found to predict play, language and cognitive abilities; and have recently become a target of intervention research and clinical practice.

Unfortunately, there has been little empirical emphasis to date, identifying procedures to systematically identify social reinforcers. Based on pilot data collected at the University of Miami, it appears that children with ASD show a range of sensitivity and preference for social contingencies.

Results from this study will have important practical relevance for clinicians working with individuals with ASD. Clinicians are often faced with the problem of designing and implementing skill development programs that will be effective at teaching the required skill as well as result in optimal maintenance and generalization.

Often, clinicians rely on the use of contrived reinforcers in an effort to use powerful forms of reinforcement that will produce the desired treatment effect. A limitation of these forms of reinforcement, particularly in the area of social skills and joint attention intervention, is limited maintenance and generalization as well as a lack of validity. Teaching these skills using tangible or non-social forms of reinforcement may lead to the development of a skill that is topographically similar but functionally different than the targeted skill. This distinction, albeit a subtle one, is important for the development of these important skills.

Study Methodology In Brief

The researchers will recruit 15 children with ASD between the ages of 2 and 5 years of age. Each participant will take part in a series of four different assessments designed to identify preferences for social consequences and socially based reinforcers. The assessments will include:

1.   A single operant reinforcer assessment presents participants with the opportunity to respond with a behavior to gain access to social consequences. This assessment is used to determine which social consequences would be used as reinforcers during a joint attention intervention.

2.   A concurrent choice reinforcer assessment is currently being piloted as an alternative, potentially more sensitive procedure, than the single operant procedure. This assessment consists of presenting participants with the opportunity to engage in one of two concurrently available simple operant responses. In this assessment, one of the two responses is associated with delivery of a social consequence, while the other has no consequences provided.

3.   A paired-stimulus preference assessment, using edible/leisure items and activities, which in this case, may be useful in yielding a rank order of preference for social consequences and ultimately a single, highly preferred social consequence. During this assessment, participants are presented with the opportunity to choose between two social consequences. With repeated presentations, each social consequence will be paired once with every other consequence.

4.   An eye-tracker assessment is the most novel assessment. It will be developed to determine the extent to which visual tracking of stimuli representing social interactions will be useful in the identification of reinforcers. The researchers aim to pilot this procedure, which will use a series of visual stimuli representing social reinforcers previously identified through the reinforcer assessments. The eye-tracker assessment will allow researchers to evaluate the extent to which behavioral gaze patterns are associated with previously identified social reinforcers. Presumably, behavioral gaze patters may be a reliable method to assess preference for social reinforcers that does not require any pre-requisite skills (e.g., instructional control, picture card discrimination skills) from the participant and that may be a reliable and efficient assessment procedure.

Data from this study will significantly contribute to the literature regarding preference and reinforcer assessment designed specifically to identify social reinforcers. In addition, Dr. Gutierrez believes these data will enhance understanding of the role that social motivation may play in ASD and related skill deficits. Finally, resulting data may also shed light on how individual differences impact preference and sensitivity for social consequences. It is possible that this characteristic (preference for social consequences) may be correlated to symptom severity, symptom presentation, and perhaps shed light on characteristics that may predict treatment responsiveness for individuals with ASD.

Researcher

Anibal Gutierrez, Ph.D., BCBA, is the coordinator of behavioral services, at the University of Miami-Nova Southeastern University Center for Autism and Related Disabilities. He has over 10 years of experience working with individuals diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities as well as individuals with dual diagnoses. He has conducted assessment and treatment of severe problem behavior, conducted and supervised discrete trial and verbal behavior programs, and designed and implemented behavior acquisition programs. He has presented nationally on the assessment and treatment of problem behavior and on the acquisition of communicative behavior. Dr. Gutierrez is also an Adjunct Professor for the Center for Psychological Studies at Nova Southeastern University.