Abstract
Challenging behaviors involving food are common for individuals with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and often lead to obesity and other chronic health conditions. Efforts to decrease these behaviors, such as isolation during meals and strict monitoring of food consumption, can be stigmatizing. To decrease the food stealing of a 7 year-old girl with PWS, therapists conducted a latency-based functional analysis in a clinic setting before implementing a function-based intervention to facilitate her inclusion at the family dinner table. Intervention components entailed differential reinforcement procedures which incorporated a token board and schedule thinning. The intervention successfully generalized to the home setting and across food preferences and implementers.
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We thank the Treatment and Research Institute for Autism Spectrum Disorders (TRIAD) for contributing space and resources.
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JL conceived of the study, participated in its design, coordination, and implementation, and drafted the manuscript; NP conceived of the study, participated in its design, coordination, and implementation, and drafted the manuscript; KS conceived of the study and participated in its design, coordination, and implementation; NH-J conceived of the study and participated in its design, coordination, and implementation. VM conceived of the study and participated in its design, coordination, and implementation. ES conceived of the study and participated in its design, coordination, and implementation. MM conceived of the study and participated in its design, coordination, and implementation. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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This research has been approved by the appropriate Institutional Research Ethics Committee and has been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments.
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The participant’s guardians provided informed consent for participation before we initiated study-related activities.
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Lambert, J.M., Parikh, N., Stankiewicz, K.C. et al. Decreasing Food Stealing of Child with Prader-Willi Syndrome Through Function-Based Differential Reinforcement. J Autism Dev Disord 49, 721–728 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3747-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-018-3747-y