ERIC EJ899097: Teaching Effective Hand Raising to Children with Autism during Group Instruction

2010·0.13 MB·English

by  ERIC

JOURNALOFAPPLIEDBEHAVIORANALYSIS 2010, 43, 493–497 NUMBER3 (FALL2010)
TEACHING EFFECTIVE HAND RAISING TO CHILDREN
WITH AUTISM DURING GROUP INSTRUCTION
SHAIREEN M. CHARANIA
CENTRALEASTAUTISMPROGRAM,KINARK
LINDA A. LEBLANC
AUBURNUNIVERSITY
NARMATHA SABANATHAN AND INAS A. KTAECH
CENTRALEASTAUTISMPROGRAM,KINARK
JAMES E. CARR
AUBURNUNIVERSITY
AND
KRISTIN GUNBY
CENTRALEASTAUTISMPROGRAM,KINARK
Wetaught3childrenwithautismtoraiseahandorkeepbothhandsdowndependingontheir
status(e.g.,havingheardatargetword,possessingaspecificitem)usingmodeling,prompting,
and reinforcement. All 3 children acquired accurate hand-raising skills in response to
progressively more difficult discrimination tasks during group instruction. The implications
for preparingchildren for general education settings are discussed.
Keywords: autism, conditional stimulus control, group instruction, hand raising
_______________________________________________________________________________
A significant portion of instruction in early be able to respond effectively when an instruc-
elementary school occurs in group settings, tor poses a question to the group. The student
which can be challenging for children with must indicate whether he or she can provide an
autism due to difficulties with attending, answer to the teacher’s question (i.e., raise a
initiating responding, and social interactions hand)ornot(i.e.,keephandsdown).Failureto
(Dawson & Faja, 2008). To ensure that raise a hand when one could answer means a
children with autism benefit to the greatest missed opportunity for reinforcement or error
extent possible from academic integration, correction,whereasraisingahandwhenonehas
active responding in small-group instruction no subsequent response to provide could be
should be directly targeted (Carnahan, Musti- embarrassing or disruptive to ongoing instruc-
Rao, & Bailey, 2009). To succeed in small- tion.
group instruction, students must have acquired Recent studies have directly examined strat-
the targeted academic responses and also must egies for teaching children with autism to
answer questions, which Skinner (1957) re-
ferred to as intraverbals (Finkel & Williams,
WethankMichelleGilad,JoannaPolanowski,Lindsay
2001; Goldsmith, LeBlanc, & Sautter, 2007;
Standing,RenataDeKeyser,andNancyMarchesefortheir
assistancewiththe study. Ingvarsson & Hollobaugh, 2010). However,
Address correspondence to Linda A. LeBlanc, Depart- each of these studies targeted responding in an
mentofPsychology,226ThachHall,AuburnUniversity,
individual instructional format, whereas most
Alabama36849(e-mail: [email protected]).
doi:10.1901/jaba.2010.43-493 general education students encounter this kind
493
494 SHAIREEN M. CHARANIA et al.
of task in a group format. Furthermore, section housed a computer, books, a television,
accurately responding to an instructor’s ques- and several toys for social programming and
tion posed to a group is under conditional scheduled reinforcement periods.
stimulus control. For example, answering the
question ‘‘Who has the green circle?’’ would be Dependent Variables and Measurement
under the stimulus control of boththe question Group instruction tasks. The experimenter
(the discriminative stimulus, SD) and the presented three types of tasks in the form of
possession of the green circle (the conditional questions during group instruction. The group
stimulus). Thus, the purpose of the present consistedofthethreeparticipantsonly.Thethree
study was to use a discrimination training tasks required progressively more difficult dis-
procedure that included rules, modeling, and criminations, with the third task constituting the
reinforcement to teach three children with educationally relevant target that these children
autism to raise a hand only when they could would likely encounter in their future classroom
provide an accurate response. settings. The first task involved reporting the
possession of an item. Each child received an
opaque bag with one item inside and was
METHOD
instructed to look inside. The next instruction
Participants and Setting wastoraiseahandiftherequesteditemwasinthe
Three boys with diagnoses of autism served bag. The experimenter then queried ‘‘Who has
as participants. Edgar (10 years old), Justin the [item]?’’ for one of three items on each trial.
(9 years old), and Nathan (8 years old) received Inthisauditory-visualconditionaldiscrimination,
approximately 25 hr per week of intensive theexperimenter’squestionservedastheauditory
behavioralinterventionatthesamecenter-based SD, and the item in the bag served as the visual
program and were preparing to transition to conditional stimulus for the hand-raise response.
different general education classrooms within The secondtask involved reportinghaving heard
the year. Each child had extensive receptive, a ‘‘secret word.’’ In each trial, the teacher
imitative, mand, tact, intraverbal, and instruc- whispered a target word to one child and a
tion-following repertoires. At the time of the greeting to the other two children. The experi-
study,Edgar,Justin,andNathanhadmet79%, menter then told the children to raise a hand if
98%, and 96%, respectively, of the verbal and they had just heard the secret word. In this
social milestones in the criterion-referenced auditory-auditoryconditionaldiscrimination,the
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and experimenter’squestionservedasanauditorySD,
Placement Program (Sundberg, 2008). Despite and the recent whisper served as the auditory
these relatively substantial repertoires, each conditional stimulus, both of which were pre-
childconsistentlyfailedtoraisehishandduring sented in close temporal proximity. The third
group instruction when he could provide a task, which was the most difficult and most
correct answer to the teacher’s question. educationally relevant, involved providing intra-
The center-based program was housed in the verbalandtactresponsestofactualquestions(e.g.,
upper level of a private day-care center. The ‘‘Whatanimalhasatailandfourlegs?’’;‘‘Whatis
facilities included several classrooms, a gymna- this [with picture]?’’). During group instruction,
sium, a kitchen, bathrooms, an outdoor the experimenter asked the children to raise a
playground,andafrontlawn.Sessionsoccurred hand if they ‘‘knew the answer’’ to the question.
in a classroom that was divided into two areas. In this successive conditional discrimination, the
One section contained three tables and three experimenter’s question served as an immediate
chairs that faced a whiteboard for individual auditory SD, but the conditional stimulus would
and group academic instruction. The other have been presented during prior learning.
HAND RAISING 495
Accuracy of the hand-raise or hands-down trainingsessionswas97%(range,85%to100%).
response was determined for each child based An observer used a checklist to score procedural
on his own performance during an individual integrityfor10%ofsessions.Sessionswerescored
assessment conducted prior to baseline and for the following: (a) presence of all necessary
every 2 weeks during intervention. During the materials, (b) appropriate provision of items or
initial assessment, the experimenter asked 40 secret word for the trial, (c) presentation of the
questions from the center’s curriculum to questions, (d) prompts and reinforcement when
identify a list of questions that only one of the appropriate to the condition, (e) inclusion of
threechildrencouldanswercorrectly(i.e.,every hands-downandhand-uptrialsforeverychildin
trial included one accurate hand-up and two every condition, (f) presentation and prompt for
hands-down responses). Fifteen new questions choral responding of the rule, and (g) experi-
were presented during two subsequent assess- menter’s responses to correct and incorrect
ments that were conducted during the inter- responses during intervention. The mean proce-
vention to identify new questions that only one dural integrity score across sessions was 96%
child could answer for upcoming sessions. (range, 93% to 100% across participants).
Targetbehaviors.Thedependentmeasurewas
the percentage of accurate responses to hands- Procedure and Experimental Design
down and hand-up opportunities in a session. A concurrent multiple baseline design across
Data were collapsed across participants to tasks was used to evaluate the effects of
obtain a group mean accuracy for each target. discrimination training on accuracy of respond-
A trained observer scored an accurate response ing during group instruction. Sessions generally
to a hands-down opportunity if the child kept lasted less than 10 min and consisted of a total
both hands in his lap when he did not possess of 27 trials, with nine trials of each task. Each
thetargetitem,hadnotheardthesecretword,or set of nine trials included six hands-down
had not previously acquired the factual answer. responsesperchildandthreehand-upresponses
Anyliftingofeitherhandundertheseconditions per child. The set of nine trials for a task was
constituted an inaccurate response to a hands- presented consecutively, but the order of task
down opportunity. An accurate response to a presentation in each session was randomly
hand-up opportunity was scored when a child determined.
raised only one hand to at least shoulder level Baseline. The experimenter responded to the
whenhepossessedthetargetitem,hadheardthe child’s responses to the question with a general
secret word, or had previously acquired the statement (e.g., ‘‘That was fun, let’s do
factual answer. Keeping hands down, raising another’’). Children who raised a hand were
both hands, or raising the hand below the not called on, and no programmed reinforcers
shoulder level constituted an inaccurate response or prompts were delivered.
to the hand-up opportunity. Discrimination training. Before each session,
Interobserveragreementandproceduralintegrity. the experimenter read the rule, ‘‘If you know it
A second independent observer scored 50% of or have it, raise your hand; otherwise wait for
sessions. Point-by-point interobserver agreement another question,’’ to the group twice, and the
was calculated by dividing the number of group repeated the rule chorally. The experi-
agreements by agreements plus disagreements menter then asked the first question and
andconvertingtheresultingratiotoapercentage. allowed 5 s for the participants to respond.
An agreement was defined as both observers Theexperimenterpraisedaccuratehand-upand
scoring every child’s response on a specific trial hands-down responses enthusiastically. When
identically. Mean agreement across baseline and the correct response was a hand raise, that
496 SHAIREEN M. CHARANIA et al.
Figure1. Percentageofaccuratechildresponsestoinstructorquestionsacrosstasks.Filledcirclesdesignatetrialsin
whichthechildhadanitemorcouldprovideananswer(i.e.,hand-upopportunities),andopencirclesdesignatetrialsin
whichthe childdid nothave anitem orcould notprovide the answer(i.e.,hands-down opportunities).
participant stood and showed the item or trial, the hand-up error (i.e., he did not raise his
reported the answer to the other students. After hand but should have) was addressed first.
praising accurate responses, the experimenter
responded to any inaccurate responses by stating
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
the rule, modeling the accurate response, and
providing a single rehearsal opportunity with Figure 1 depicts the percentage of accurate
feedback.Ifdifferentchildrencommittedahand- responses for the group across the three target
up error and a hands-down error on the same skills. During baseline, each child usually sat
HAND RAISING 497
without raising his hand in response to every question (i.e., excessive hand raising
questions regardless of status (e.g., possessing during hands-down trials might be just as
the item, having previously heard the word). problematicasacompletelackofhandraising).
This pattern of behavior resulted in a very high Future research might examine whether
percentageaccuracyofhands-downresponsesin responding about private information (taught
baseline and multiple missed opportunities to during the third task) could be learned readily
participate. With the initiation of discrimina- without training on the first two skills. In
tion training, hand raises began to occur more addition, future research might explore whether
frequently on hand-up opportunities. Hand more generalization might result from training
raises also began to occur more frequently on with even more targets. Finally, we implement-
the hands-down opportunities (i.e., errors), ed discrimination training in a group instruc-
suggesting that the high baseline performance tional format to save the time that would have
on hands-down represented nonresponding been required to conduct individual training
rather than accurate discrimination. The mas- with each participant before programming for
tery criterion of three consecutive sessions with
transfer to group situations. Future research
100% accuracy for both responses was met in
mightinvestigatewhetherindividualinstruction
29 sessions for the first task, 38 sessions for the
might also be effective when other learners are
second task, and 27 sessions for the third task.
not available for group instruction.
Interestingly, improvements in hand-up re-
sponses in the third task occurred while the
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