Presented By: Hannah Kaplan

Caldwell College

Teaching Children With Autism ToUse Photographic Activity Schedules:Maintenance And Generalization Of

Complex Response Chains

MacDuff, Krantz, and McClannahan (1993)

To teach photographic activity schedules with graduated guidance

To examine its effects on acquisition, maintenance and generalization of:

A. complex response chainsB. on-task/on-schedule behaviorC. transitions to different settings…

WITHOUT PROMPTS

Purpose

It is a common goal to increase functional skills and engagement in individuals with autism.

Often taught with verbal, gestural, and model prompts.

Why do you think verbal prompts do not occasion spontaneous behaviors? Why might they be harder to fade?

“Because these prompts are often associated with reinforcement during teaching, they may acquire

stimulus control over target responses, with the result that learners may not display target skills in the absence

of teachers and prompting procedures. (p. 89)”

Importance

Complex response chains often do not generalize or maintain over time.

Lengthy response chains are not acquired.

Individual components responsible for past research results have not been determined.

Importance

4 participants with a diagnosis of autism:Mike: 9, Walter: 9, Steve: 11, Roy:14

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test: 2.1-3.9 mean:3.2

http://ags.pearsonassessments.com/group.asp?nGroupInfoID=a30700

(Steve was unable to attain a basal score)Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale:

Mike: 5.5, Walter: 5.5, Roy: 5.3, Steve: 3.3

http://ags.pearsonassessments.com/Group.asp?nGroupInfoID=a3000

Participants

All participants had long histories of disruptive behavior (i.e., aggression, tantrums, running away)

All had high rates of stereotypy when not in structured programming.

All had severe language deficits: echolalia, vocal noise, noncontextual

speech, and lack of spontaneous language

All were dependent on ongoing supervision and VERBAL PROMPTS

Participants

On a positive note…All had picture-object correspondence

before study beganHad some limited experience with picture

schedules (washing, packing lunch), but…They had not been exposed to using picture

schedules forA. Leisure activities

B. A sequence of multiple whole activities

Participants

Teaching Family Model group homeParticipants had been residing 1.1-4.2

yearsFamily styleConsumer evaluated Note: PCDI’s professional guidelines are

partially based on Phillips, Phillips, Fixsen, and Wolfe (1979) Teaching Family Handbook

http://www.teaching-family.org/Sessions: living room, family room,

bedrooms

Setting

On-task behavior:A. Visually attending to materialsB. Looking at photographic activity

schedulesC. Manipulating materials

appropriatelyD. In transition from one activity to

another

Dependent Variables

Off-task behavior was scored if…A.Used materials inappropriatelyB.Not visually attending to materialsC.Engaging in inappropriate

behaviorD.Not engaging in the activity or

manipulating materials

Dependent Variables

Dependent VariablesOn-schedule:• Engaging in the activity that is depicted on the opened pageEx: If a participant was building with legos, the open page would have a picture of legos

Off-schedule• Scored if on-task not met

Gestures and gestural prompts:

Nonspecific: all pointing, motioning, or nodding toward children or materials

Specific: pointing to specific toys, materials, or photographs that indicated what the next task should be

Independent Variables

Manual prompts: Orienting a youth's head toward materials, handover-hand prompts, and light touches (fading)

Verbal contacts: Verbal instructions, questions, or praise statements

Independent Variables

All sessions : 60 s momentary time sampling for on-

task/on-schedule (independent observers)

60 s partial interval for verbal/gestural/manual prompts (additional observers)

Design:Multiple Baseline across participantsPhases: Baseline, teaching, maintenance,

resequencing, generalization across novel stimuli

Measurement/Design

3 ring binder with…6 pictures (7cm x 11.5 cm) with plain background and no distracters, each on…

Single white paper (21.5 cm x 28 cm) in…

Plastic page protector…What do you think would happen if any of these details changed?

Materials

The first three pictures consisted of depictions of activities such as tinkertoys, colorforms, and legos

The last three pictures for all boys were snack, puzzle, and TV

Why do you think those were the last three activities?

Some of the activities were located above the participants desks on shelves, some were located on dressers, and others were located in the family room

Did not specify whether the material had specific locations that did not vary.

Materials

“Everyone, look at me. Please find something to do.”

No additional manual, gestural, or verbal prompts

Inappropriate behavior ignoredTeacher not presentWhy not?

Procedure: Baseline

Participants sat on a benchTeacher stood next to the benchPrimary observer: “Everyone look at me. Find

something to do”If participant did not stand up within 10 s, or

he stood up, but did not move toward photo activity schedule

Teacher placed hand on shoulder and guide to photo activity schedule

Graduated guidance from behindWhat is the SD? What do you think about

it?Is there a conditional stimulus?

Procedure: Teaching

Manually prompted to..1. pick up his notebook, 2. carry it to his bedroom,3. open it, 4. point to the first picture,5. gather the necessary materials, 6. complete the activity,7. put materials away, 8. and turn the page to the next activity. Prompted to put materials away and move on

to the next activity when used all materials or completed worksheet

Procedure: Teaching

Note: If schedule was completed within 60 minutes, the last activity (TV) was continued until time was up.

Fading:Graduated guidance initially available

for all tasksMoved as quickly as possible to spatial

fadingThen to shadowingIf participant paused or engaged in

inappropriate behavior, more intrusive prompting was reinstated

Procedure: Teaching

Teaching condition ended for each participant:

On task/on-schedule80% of samplesEnough? What criterion do you use?

5 consecutive sessionsAfter teacher’s physical proximity faded

Procedure: Criteria

Teacher present to prompt the youth entering the teaching condition

But no prompts were provided30-70 sessions

Procedure: Maintenance

Purpose: to assess whether participants were using schedules or following a familiar routine. Is the schedule an SD or is it irrelevant feature?

All activities except for snack and TV were randomly put in new positions in schedule

Not enough time for Steve to participateNo prompts were deliveredTeacher was absentSounds like train and hope What w0uld be a potentially more

proactive strategy?

Procedure: Resequencing

Teacher not present2 out of 6 of the original activities

replaced with 2 similar but novel activities for each participant

None of the novel activities had ever been directly taught or used in photographic activity schedule

Train and hope or multiple exemplars?

What other types of generalization could be assessed?

Procedure: Generalization

Obtained for at least 30% of sessions across all conditions

Occurrence of on-task: mean of 96% (0%-100%)

Nonoccurrence of on-task: mean 95% (0%-100%)

On-schedule occurrence and nonoccurrence: mean of 99% (98%-100%)

IOA

Obtained for at least 30% of sessions across all conditions

Nonoccurrence of verbal prompts: 100%

Occurrence of manual prompts: mean of 99% (50%-100%)

Nonoccurrence of manual prompts: 99% (99%-100%).

Treatment Integrity

Baseline:Most participants’ behavior was variable.Steve was almost never on taskIntervention:On-task immediately increased for allMike, Walt, Roy: means of 99% Steve: mean of 97% Maintenance, resequencing, generalization:All had high, stable performancesMaintenance means: Mike & Walt: 99%, Roy: 97%,

Steve: 91%Resequencing: Mike & Walt: 99%, Roy: 96, Steve: N/AGeneralization: Mike & Walt: 99%, Roy: 97%, Steve: 96%

Results: On-Task

Baseline: never scored (0%)Teaching condition means: Mike: 99%, Walter: 99%, Roy: 99%, Steve: 96%Maintenance means: Mike: 98%, Walter: 99%, Roy: 97%, Steve: 91%Resequencing means: Mike:97%, Walter: 99%, Roy: 95%Generalization: Mike: 99% for Walter: 99%, Roy: 97%, Steve: 96%

Results: On-Schcedule

Baseline: 0 recorded for all types of prompts

Manual prompt means for sessions 1-5: Mike: 4% (3%-8%), Walt: 8% (0%-22%),

Roy: 23% (20%-40%), Steve: 19% (8%-37%)

Manual prompt means for sessions 6-10: 0% for all types of prompts

Maintenance, resequencing, generalization: 0% for all

From session 90 on, teacher was no longer present

Results: IVs

Results

Results

Before treatment the participants did not engage in sustained on-task behavior

After 13-27 sessions, participants learned to remain on-task and on-schedule with a photographic cues through the implementation of graduated guidance.

Participants successfully maintained behaviors, responded without prompts to a new sequence of pictures, and generalized their repertoire to novel activities.

Resequencing and generalization occurred without teacher prompts or presence.

“The photographic schedules enabled the boys to display lengthy and complex chains of previously mastered, functional behavior.”

In Sum…

1. Resequencing of pictures: a. Generalizing orderb. Ensuring photographs as discriminitive

stimulic. Do we necessarily want photographs as

eventual Sds (grocery shopping vs. washing dishes)

2. Introducing novel stimuli:d. Generalization of activitiese. Ensureing photographs as discriminative

stimuli

Stimulus Control Concepts

3. Graduated guidance vs. verbal prompts:a. Allows for successful fading of promptsb. Helps to establish photographs as SDsc. Establishes photographic activity

schedule as Sdelta for inappropriate behavior

4. Material guidelines:d. Prevents overshadowing, stimulus

overselectivitye. Limits generalization to novel materials

Stimulus Control Concepts

5. Sequence of behaviors as a chain:a. Each behavior is an SD for the nextb. Each behavior is an SR+ for the

previous one6. Initial verbal direction:

c. SD is teacher dependentd. Could vary verbal SDe. Could establish environmental

conditions as SD (e.g., absence of teacher directions, time of day, alarm)

Stimulus Control Concepts

7. Sitting on bench:a. Becomes conditional stimulus for

beginning activityb. May be more beneficial to teach

multiple exemplars of settings in which to respond to initial SD

8 . Teacher’s absence/presence:c. Teacher could become controlling

stimulusd. Baseline, resequencing, and

generalization phase, controlled for this by not having teacher present

Stimulus Control Concepts

1. Train and hope: Yes2. Sequential modification: No, but maybe if

the participants had not succeeded to generalize

3. Introduce to naturally maintaining contingencies: Potentially

4. Train sufficient exemplars: ?5. Train loosely: No

In Reference to Stokes and Baer (1977)

6. Use indiscriminable contingencies: TV was final reinforcement for all students and all activities. Schedule of reinforcement was the same for all as well. No other reinforcement contingencies were mentioned

7. Program common stimuli: Training situation was the actual environment

8. Mediate generalization: There was no mention of the participants’ verbal behavior

9. Train to generalize: No

In Reference to Stokes and Baer (1977)

1. Comparing manual prompting with verbal prompting

2. Verbally prompting from behind compared with person in site

3. With other sources of reinforcement4. Multiple initial SDs (verbal and nonverbal)5. Eliminating conditional stimuli6. Resequencing pictures from the start7. Multiple exemplars of stimuli from the start8. Using participants who do not have picture/object

correspondence9. Using in community (social validity?)

Future Research

MacDuff, G., Krantz, P.J., and McClannahan, L.E. (1993). teaching children with

autism touse photographic activity schedules: Maintenance and generalization

of complex response chains. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 26, 89-97.

Phillips, E.L., Fixsen, D.L., Phillips, E.A., & Wolf, M.M. (1979). The Teaching-

Family Model: A comprehensive approach to residential treatment of youth. In

D. Cullinan, & M.H. Epstein (Eds.), Special Education for Adolescents: Issues

and Perspectives (pp. 203-233). New York: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Co.

Stokes, T.F., & Baer, D.M. (1977). An implicit technology of generalization. Journal

of Applied Behavior Analysis, 10, 349-367.

References