Sarah E. Pinkelman, M.S., BCBA Universi ty of Oregon

Strategies to Promote Maintenance and

Generalization of Skills for Children with Autism

¡  Understand the importance of programming for maintenance and general izat ion

¡  Define maintenance ¡  Describe strategies to promote maintenance

§  Fading prompts §  Thinning reinforcement schedule §  Naturally occurring reinforcers §  Additional considerations

¡  Define general izat ion ¡  Describe strategies to promote general izat ion

§  Recommendations from Stokes & Baer (1977) §  General case programming

OBJECTIVES

Some content of this presentation was adapted from chapter 8 in:

Barton, E. E. & Harn, B. (2012). Educating young children with autism spectrum disorders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

¡  Goal of instruct ion is to produce behavior change outside the training context §  Over time §  Across persons, settings, stimuli, etc. §  Spread to related behaviors (Stokes & Baer, 1977)

¡  Once a chi ld learns a ski l l , i t is important they § Maintain the skill over time (maintenance) §  Perform the skill in different contexts (generalization)

THE LEARNING CONTEXT

¡  Maintenance & general izat ion often occur without expl ici t training for typical ly developing chi ldren

¡  Young chi ldren with autism §  Have a propensity for repetitive behaviors, predictability, & routine §  Often have difficulty maintaining skills & generalizing to new contexts (National

Autism Center, 2009)

¡  General izat ion & maintenance should be an essential aspect of the curr iculum for chi ldren with autism (Dawson & Os te r l i ng , 1997 ; Na t iona l Research Counc i l , 2001)

CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

¡  The chi ld can “perform a response over t ime, even after systematic appl ied behavior procedures have been withdrawn” (A lbe r to & Trou tman , 2013 , p . 405 )

¡  Cannot be assumed §  Particularly true for children with autism, who often display deficits in

maintaining previously acquired skills (Harris & Weiss, 2007)

MAINTENANCE

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE MAINTENANCE: FADING PROMPTS

¡  Prompting is commonly used to teach chi ldren with developmental disabi l i t ies

¡  3 main prompting methods §  physical, visual, and verbal §  A continuum of support

¡  Prompts must be systematical ly faded as eff ic ient ly as possible §  Temporary teaching tool, not end result

¡  Prompt dependency §  When a child becomes dependent on the prompt for correct responding (Maurice,

Green, & Luce, 1997) §  Not uncommon for children with autism

§  When stimulus control from the prompt to the naturally occurring cue does not occur

FADING PROMPTS, CONT’D

¡  Most-to- least prompting §  Begin with a more supportive/intrusive prompt, and fade to a less supportive

one §  Fade in a gradual & systematic manner §  E.g., full physical èpartial physical ègestural èverbal

¡  Least-to-most prompting §  Begin with less supportive prompt & increase support as needed §  E.g., verbal ègestural èphysical §  One child responds correctly with prompt, fade support over time (begin most-

to-least) §  Disadvantage: high number of errors

FADING PROMPTS, CONT’D

¡  Stimulus shaping (LeB lanc & E tze l , 1979)

¡  Extra-st imulus & within-st imulus prompting (Schre ibman , 1975)

§  Extra-stimulus §  An additional cue is presented §  Child attends to 2 stimuli: prompt & training stimulus §  Fading procedure: most-to-least

§ Within-stimulus §  “exaggeration of the relevant component of the training stimulus” (p. 91) §  Child attends to 1 stimulus: the training stimulus §  Fading procedure: gradually fade exaggerated feature

¡  Least-to-most prompting §  TBD

¡  Extra-st imulus prompting §  TBD

¡ Within-st imulus prompting

§  TBD

FADING PROMPTS: EXAMPLES

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT

¡  Positive reinforcement (SR+) : presentat ion of a st imulus after a response that increases the future probabi l i ty of that response

¡  Continuous schedule of reinforcement (CRF) §  Every response is reinforced §  Useful when:

§  Teaching a new skill §  A behavior occurs at low frequency

§  Limitations: §  Increases likelihood of satiation §  Does not promote maintenance

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT, CONT’D

¡  Ratio Schedule §  Reinforcer delivered after a certain number of responses

§  Fixed: After a specific number of responses (FR) §  Variable: After an average number of responses (VR)

¡  Interval Schedule §  Reinforcer contingent on the first response after a certain amount of time as

passed §  Fixed: First response after a specific number of minutes (or seconds, etc.) have

passed (FI) §  Variable: First response after an average number of minutes (or seconds, etc.)

have passed (VI)

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT, CONT’D

Time Response Fixed Fixed interval Fixed ratio

Variable Variable interval Variable ratio

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT: EXAMPLES

1.  Students get 1 point for each correct math problem.

2.  Students get to go to recess after a correct group response at the end of a 90 min. period.

3.  A student receives verbal praise about every 5 responses (range 2-7).

4.  A student receives peer attention for talking out about every 5 min (range 3-8 min).

5.  Sally receives money about every 35th t ime she pul ls a lever on a slot machine (range 1-50).

Horner, 2011

¡ When teaching a new ski l l , i t is often necessary to ini t ial ly reinforce behavior more frequently that what would be typical in the natural environment

§  In teaching situations, a CRF may be used §  But in the natural environment, a VR schedule may be in place

¡  Need to “bridge the gap” between teaching situat ion & natural environment §  Dense (teaching situation) Thin (natural environment)

¡  Otherwise, EXT wil l occur when the behavior is emitted in natural environment §  Extinction (EXT): when a previously reinforced behavior is no longer reinforced

& subsequently, the occurrence of that behavior decreases

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE MAINTENANCE: THINNING SR+ SCHEDULE

Pinkelman & Barton (2012)

¡  Thinning schedule of SR+

§  SR+ gradually becomes available less often (Alberto & Troutman, 2013)

§  SR+ contingent on greater amounts of responding

§  SR+ must be gradually & systematically thinned §  E.g., CRF èVR 2 èVR 4…

THINNING SR+ SCHEDULE, CONT’D

¡  TBD

THINNING SR+ SCHEDULE: EXAMPLES

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE MAINTENANCE: NATURALLY OCCURRING REINFORCERS

¡  I t is sometimes necessary to ini t ial ly use reinforcers that don’t occur in the natural environment

¡  Once the chi ld acquires the ski l l , reinforcers should be introduced that wi l l maintain the behavior in the natural environment

¡  Extr insic reinforcers ful f i l l two object ives: §  To initially teach the skill §  Condition natural consequences as reinforcers (Horcones, 1992)

¡  TBD

NATURALLY OCCURRING REINFORCERS: EXAMPLES

¡  Frequency of ski l l §  How often does the student have the opportunity to perform the skill?

¡  Natural ly occurr ing cues §  Cue in teaching situation should resemble cue in natural context

¡  Maintenance checks §  Build into part of child’s program §  Probe performance every 2 days, week, 2 weeks, etc.

STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE MAINTENANCE: OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Pinkelman & Barton (2012)

GENERALIZATION

¡  Stimulus general izat ion §  Train a response under 1 set of stimuli §  The response occurs in the presence of different (but similar) stimuli

¡  Response general izat ion §  Train a response under 1 set of stimuli §  In the presence of the training stimuli, if the trained response is no longer

reinforced, the student engages in a new response

¡  Common descript ion of general izat ion § When a skill “it is taught under one set of conditions and the child is able to

apply the same skill with different people, in a new place, and using other materials” (Anderson, Jablonski, Thomeer, & Knapp, 2007)

§  Is this stimulus or response generalization?

¡  Stimulus general izat ion §  TBD

¡  Response general izat ion §  TBD

EXAMPLES

PROGRAMMING FOR GENERALIZED OUTCOMES

¡  General izat ion cannot be assumed §  Children with autism have difficulty generalizing newly learned skills to settings that

differ from training conditions (Maurice, Green, & Luce, 1996)

¡  Stokes and Baer (1977)

§  “Train and hope” versus explicitly programming for generalization §  Sequential modification §  Naturally maintaining contingencies §  Train sufficient exemplars §  Train loosely §  Use indiscriminable contingencies §  Program common stimuli §  Mediate generalization §  Train to generalize

¡  General case programming (Horner, McDonnel l , & Bel lamy, 1986)

SEQUENTIAL MODIFICATION

¡  Teach under condit ions in which general izat ion is desired

¡  Training sett ings are general izat ion sett ings

¡  Teach in the natural environment

¡  E.g., teaching hand-washing

¡  Use reinforcers that occur in the natural environment §  In natural settings, what reinforcer is contingent on the behavior?

¡  Perhaps the “most dependable of al l general izat ion programming mechanisms” (S tokes & Baer, 1977 , p . 353 )

¡  Previously mentioned in programming for maintenance

¡  Increases l ikel ihood the ski l l wi l l general ize to other sett ings, where that reinforcer is avai lable

NATURALLY OCCURRING CONTINGENCIES

¡  Provide mult iple examples of the concept you are teaching

¡ Without an adequate array of examples §  The child may stipulate on irrelevant features of the training stimuli §  Concept will not generalize to other stimuli

¡  E.g., teaching the color red

MULTIPLE EXEMPLARS

¡  Arrange the training sett ing to resemble natural environment

¡  Increases l ikel ihood of general izat ion from training to natural sett ing

¡  E.g., teaching hand-washing

PROGRAM COMMON STIMULI

¡  Student provides report of their attempts to general ize

¡  Might need to teach students how to accurately self-monitor and report on their behavior

¡  Reinforcement contingent on student report ing that they engaged in the general ized response

¡  E.g., teaching a student to join in a conversation with a group of peers

MEDIATE GENERALIZATION

¡ When a general ized response occurs throughout the school day, reinforce i t ! §  Especially when unprompted, or not instructed to do so

¡  Reinforcement contingent on general ized response §  Only generalized response

¡  E.g., §  Teaching play §  Teaching requests for attention

TRAIN TO GENERALIZE

¡  Teach behaviors that (Horne r, McDonne l l , & Be l l amy, 1986)

1.  Are “performed across the full range of appropriate stimulus conditions encountered by the student” (p. 290)

2.  Are not performed in conditions when the behavior is inappropriate 3.  Endure over time

¡  Stimulus condit ion: everything a student is exposed to at a given point in t ime (e.g., objects, sounds, colors, movements, etc.) §  Instructional universe (Becker, Engelman, & Thomas, 1975)

¡  Select and sequence teaching examples so students learn to perform ski l l across al l appropriate st imulus condit ions

PROMOTING GENERALIZATION: GENERAL CASE PROGRAMMING

1.  Define instruct ional universe 2.  Select teaching and test examples 3.  Sequence teaching examples 4.  Teach 5.  Test

(Horner, McDonnell , & Bel lamy, 1986)

GENERAL CASE PROGRAMMING: 5 STEPS

1. Define instruct ional universe

§  Operationally define stimulus conditions where the skill needs to be performed

§ Will vary depending on skill, student, & environment

§  Capture the range of variation of stimulus conditions

(Horne r, McDonne l l , & Be l l amy, 1986)

1: DEFINE INSTRUCTIONAL UNIVERSE

2. Select teaching and test examples

§ Select set of examples that sample the range of variation in stimulus conditions § Define stimulus that should occasion response § Examine how that stimulus changes across different stimulus conditions

§ Criteria for example selection: 1.  Positive examples are similar only with respect to relevant stimuli.

Irrelevant stimuli should be as different as possible. 2.  Positive examples sample the range of stimulus variation in which the

learner is expected to respond. 3.  Negative examples should include those that are maximally similar to

the positive examples

(Horner, McDonne l l , & Be l lamy, 1986)

2: SELECT TEACHING & TEST EXAMPLES

3. Sequence teaching examples

§  Use multiple examples within a teaching session.

§  Don’t train easy-to-hard. Student will likely learn generalization errors.

§ Within a teaching set: 60% easy, 20% intermediate, 20% hard examples.

§  Juxtapose maximally similar positive & negative examples. §  Aids in teaching fine discriminations

§  Review examples used in previous teaching session

(Horne r, McDonne l l , & Be l l amy, 1986)

3: SEQUENCE TEACHING EXAMPLES

4. Teach!

§  Teach following the lesson plan you carefully planned!

§  Incorporate effective teaching techniques that you typically use §  Reinforcement, prompting, fading, pacing, etc.

(Horne r, McDonne l l , & Be l l amy, 1986)

4: TEACH

5. Test

§  Test with a new set of examples §  Probe student performance in a novel situation, with new materials, etc.

§  To see if student responds correctly in generalization-type situations

§  Provides information for how to adjust additional instruction

(Horne r, McDonne l l , & Be l l amy, 1986)

5. TEST

¡  TBD

GENERAL CASE PROGRAMMING: EXAMPLES

CONCLUSION

¡  Educating chi ldren with autism can be complex!

¡  Often, the goal of instruct ion is to produce behavior change outside the training context.

¡  Programming to ensure maintenance and general izat ion of ski l ls is an essential component to a student’s curr iculum.

¡  Explici t ly teaching maintenance and general izat ion requires addit ional planning.

Research provides some guidance on how to increase the l ikel ihood ski l ls: ¡  Maintain over t ime

§  Fading prompts §  Thinning reinforcement schedule §  Use naturally occurring reinforcers §  Consider: frequency of skil l use, naturally occurring cues, maintenance checks

¡  General ize to st imulus condit ions other than the training sett ing §  Train in generalization setting §  Incorporate naturally occurring contingencies §  Train sufficient exemplars §  Use stimuli present in generalization setting §  Self-monitor & report on generalized attempts §  Reinforce generalized responses §  Use general case programming

CONCLUSION, CONT’D

REFERENCES

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