Abstract
We taught three children with autism how to respond to abduction lures presented by strangers. We then tested undesirable generalization of the safety response to matched instructions to leave by a familiar adult. Following training, all three participants engaged in the safety response across both strangers and familiar adults. Thus, we evaluated a set of procedures for establishing discriminated responding. Appropriate responding to instructions to leave by strangers versus familiar adults was achieved only after discrimination training. Discriminated responding occurred across a novel setting and maintained across 3 months; however, performance during stimulus generalization probes within community settings was variable.
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Data are available from the corresponding author by request.
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Author Note
All data for this study were collected by Megan Leveque-Wolfe and Jessica Niemeier-Beck, under the supervision and guidance of Nicole Rodriguez. We thank the wonderful staff in the Early Intervention, Virtual Care, Severe Behavior, and Pediatric Feeding Programs for volunteering their time to serve as confederates.
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Internal funding from the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Chancellor’s Office provided partial support for this research.
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All data for this study were collected by Megan Leveque-Wolfe and Jessica Niemeier-Beck, under the supervision and guidance of Nicole Rodriguez .
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All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Levesque-Wolfe, M.A., Rodriguez, N.M. & Niemeier-Beck, J.J. Consideration of Both Discriminated and Generalized Responding When Teaching Children with Autism Abduction Prevention Skills. Behav Analysis Practice 14, 396–409 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-020-00541-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-020-00541-9
Keywords
- Abduction
- Behavioral skills training
- In situ training
- Multiple-exemplar training