Applied Behavior Analysis, Annotated Bibliography Example

Rivera, C. (2008).The Use of Intensive Behavioural Intervention for Children With Autism. Journal on developmental Disabilities. Vol 14 (2).

The author uses Lovass Method to examine autism among children by examining treatments, as well as interventions needed to help these children through behavioral changes. Rivera (2008) says that autism is a persistent developmental disorder with prevalent rates increasing annually. It is characterized by impaired social interaction, specific language abnormalities, behavioral stereotypes along with diverse cognitive shortcomings. The presence of symptoms and the severity intellectual disabilities, to high-functioning, where currently there is no cure. Nonetheless, intensive behavioral interventions for the autism.  Present treatment methods for the autistic spectrum disorders comprise the management of associated medical challenges,  pharmacologic, and non-pharmacologic intervention for challenging behaviors and the use of complementary and alternative medical treatments. Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) principles used by Dr. Lovaas to fashion his model of behavior modification destined to improve the behavior of children with autism. Based on the model, because of  the  rigorous  nature  of  the therapy,  parents  should be educated   by  therapists well-equipped with the program, which will allow them to deliver  the  therapy  at  their home. In  this  manner,  the  kids  are  fundamentally immersed  in  the  therapy  in  all  the hours, whenever they  are  awake.  there is the need to built  into  the  40  hours per week  of  therapy are  scheduled  breaks, like meals,  and  playtime. Because of learning difficulties among children with autism, systematic behavioral teaching techniques, like discrete trial training  (DDT) are utilized to break down every skill so that it may more easily be learned. Since children with the disorder have short attention spans, learn more slowly, as well as having difficulty understanding abstract ideas, learning each skill is fragmented short units. Each trial has three parts: a stimulus, a response, and a consequence. An example of a skill that need to be learned is being able to look at therapist when asked. In this case, the stimulus or instruction may be the therapist asking the kid to look at him or her. According to Rivera (2008), children with autism should be subjected to ABA therapy and should initially take place in quite atmosphere with few distractions to optimize learning potential of the child undergoing therapy. The eventual objective of the therapy; nonetheless, is to be able to generalize behaviors that are learned in ABA therapy to more general settings like play time or at school. Therefore, as kids become more successful in performing a particular task , then therapy can move to more naturalistic environments to improve the conditions of the children with autism (Rivera, 2008).

Geiger, K. B., Carr, J. E., LeBlanc, L. A., Hanney, N. M., Polick, A. S., & Heinicke, M. R. (2012). Teaching Receptive Discriminations to Children With Autism: A Comparison of Traditional and Embedded Discrete Trial Teaching. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 5(2), 49–59.

Geiger et al (2012) provides information on interventions to autism disorders among children by using discrete trial teaching (DTT) method. DTT processes have proven efficient in teaching language to kids with autism disorder. The method uses highly structured, fast-paced instruction method, which is classically carried out on a one-on-one basis at a desk or table having minimal distractions. The therapy is undertaken in a quite environment, which allows one to attain the therapy goals. The instructions are embedded within the background of a more realistic, act-based setting. It has brief learning designed to influence the behavior, whereby the units lasts for about 5 to 20 seconds, which is presented rapidly to optimize the learning opportunities in every teaching session. The method may be used to teach a number of languages, as well as academic skills, which include motor and vocal imitation, simple, as well as conditional discriminations, labeling, along with question answering. The most significant aspect of DTT is to assess whether or not the therapy is functioning. This means that, the child with autism has to demonstrate observable and  quantifiable changes. The changes need to be measurable to show a cause and effect relationship between the outcome and intervention (Geiger et al, 2012).

Finally,  an  significant  part  of  ABA , which is  built  into  the  therapy  and  in  the result   measure   is  to   determine the way generalizable   the   skills, which   have   been learned   are   in   non-therapy   instances. For instance, the learner might require unequivocal instruction on the rules of a game or practice with turn-taking before he/she is ready to play the game with peers in the school setting. A  truly  successful intervention  is  considered  to  be  the  child being  able  to  enter  mainstream  schooling. Therefore, the right timing and environment should be a top priority that will be considered while offering therapy to assist children with autism. This is because the child must respond to the stimuli that is exposed without prompts and there is the need to use less prompts while carrying out the therapy (Myers & Johnson, 2007).

References

Geiger, K. B., Carr, J. E., LeBlanc, L. A., Hanney, N. M., Polick, A. S., & Heinicke, M. R. (2012). Teaching Receptive Discriminations to Children With Autism: A Comparison of Traditional and Embedded Discrete Trial Teaching. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 5(2), 49–59.

Myers, S.M., and Johnson, C.P. (2007). American Academy of Pediatrics, Council on Children with Disabilities. Management of children with autism spectrum disorders. Pediatrics,120(5), 1162-1182.

Rivera, C. (2008).The Use of Intensive Behavioural Intervention for Children With Autism.  Journal on developmental Disabilities. Vol 14 (2).