Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T11:30:23.759Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Reducing Self-Stimulatory Behaviour in a Boy With Autism: A Single Case Study*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2015

Miguel Fernandez*
Affiliation:
Association for Autistic Children in W.A.
*
16 Outlook Drive, Edgewater, W.A. 6027
Get access

Abstract

Time Out (TO) and Trained Play Sessions (TPS) of basketball/football and computer games were used to reduce the self-stirnulatory behaviour of a higher functioning autistic child in an integrated classroom setting. The self-stimulatory behaviour took the form of inappropriate vocalization while gazing at the classroom clock. The client participated in sessions in an A-B-A-B design where A is the baseline and B the intervention. In addition, there was one continuation phase and an additional phase with a different condition. It was found that: (a) during baseline, inappropriate vocalisation was very high with the clock on the wall, (b) the percentage of inappropriate vocalisation dropped during the intervention and continuation phases when the clock was removed from the wall and TO and TPS were introduced and (c) the reduction in inappropriate vocalisation was found to be maintained when TPS were conducted with the clock on the wall and without TO.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Psychological Society 1990

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This paper was presented at the Australian Behaviour Modification Association's 12th National Conference, 1989, Perth, Western Australia.

References

Azrin, N.H., Kaplan, S.J. & Foxx, R.M. (1973). Autism reversal: Stereotyped self-stimulation of retarded individuals. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 3, 241248.Google Scholar
Aiken, J & Salzberg, C. (1984). The effects of a sensory extinction procedure on stereotypic sounds of two autistic children. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 14, 219299.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koegel, R.L. & Covert, A. (1972). The relationship of self-stimulation to learning in autistic children. Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis, 5, 381387CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koegel, R.L., Firestone, P.B., Krarnme, K.W. & Dunlap, G. (1974). Increasing spontaneous play by suppressing self-stimulation in autistic children. Journal of Applied Behaviour Analysis, 7, 521528.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lovaas, O.I., Litrownik, A. & Mann, R. (1971). Response latencies to auditory stimuli in autistic children engaged in self-stimulatory behavior. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 9, 3949.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lovaas, O.I., Newsom, CD. & Hickman, C. (1987). Self-stimulatory behaviour and perceptual reinforcement. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 20, 4568.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Repp, A.C., Deitz, S.M. & Spier, N.C. (1974). Reducing stereotypic responding of retarded persons by the differential reinforcement of other behaviours. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 79, 279284.Google Scholar
Varni, J.W., Lovaas, O.I., Koegel, R.L. & Everett, N.L. (1979). An analysis of observational learning in autistic and normal children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 7, 3143.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed