Restricted interests and teacher presentation of items

Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

Department

Psychology

ISSN

0021-8855

Volume

44

Issue

3

DOI

10.1901/jaba.2011.44-499

First Page

499

Last Page

512

Publication Date

Fall 11-1-2011

Abstract

Restricted and repetitive behavior (RRB) is more pervasive, prevalent, frequent, and severe in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) than in their typical peers. One subtype of RRB is restricted interests in items or activities, which is evident in the manner in which individuals engage with items (e.g., repetitious wheel spinning), the types of items or activities they select (e.g., preoccupation with a phone book), or the range of items or activities they select (i.e., narrow range of items). We sought to describe the relation between restricted interests and teacher presentation of items. Overall, we observed 5 teachers interacting with 2 pairs of students diagnosed with an ASD. Each pair included 1 student with restricted interests. During these observations, teachers were free to present any items from an array of 4 stimuli selected by experimenters. We recorded student responses to teacher presentation of items and analyzed the data to determine the relation between teacher presentation of items and the consequences for presentation provided by the students. Teacher presentation of items corresponded with differential responses provided by students with ASD, and those with restricted preferences experienced a narrower array of items.

Comments

This experiment was conducted in partial fulfillment of the first author's requirements for the master's degree at Northeastern University. We thank Kevin Schlichenmeyer for his aid in data collection. We thank Bill Ahearn, Jason Bourret, and Eileen Roscoe for their comments on the manuscript.

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