Evaluation of Matched and Unmatched Stimuli on the Maintenance of Treatment Effects for Automatically Maintained Self-Injurious Behavior (AUTO)

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PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Individuals with developmental disabilities, including intellectual disability (ID) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), commonly engage in repetitive challenging behavior such as self-injurious behavior (SIB) that is maintained by automatic reinforcement (i.e., internal sources of reinforcement). The behavioral intervention literature provides demonstrations of successful approaches to the treatment of such behavior, including noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) and differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO). However, these demonstrations are limited in that they rarely, if ever, describe successful application of intervention strategies over protracted time periods or the ability to successfully reduce (thin) the schedule of availability for competing sources of stimulation (i.e., preferred items/activities) from continuously or nearly continuously available. As a result, little is known about variables that might impact the success of long-term implementation of NCR and DRO as treatments for automatically maintained SIB. Prior research on treatment of automatically maintained SIB suggests that both stimuli matched to the putative sensory consequences produced by automatically maintained SIB and stimuli unmatched to the putative sensory consequences produced by automatically maintained SIB are effective for reducing SIB in the context of NCR-based interventions. This finding provides an avenue for exploring variables related to long-term intervention success, including successfully increasing treatment implementation durations and thinning the schedule of reinforcement. Thus, the aims of this project are to evaluate the impact of matched and unmatched stimuli in the context of NCR- and DRO-based intervention on the ability to both increase intervention time (i.e., treatment longevity) and to reduce the amount of time spent with the alternative stimuli (i.e., schedule thinning). These aims will be explored in the context of single-subject research designs within which intervention approaches will be alternated and compared. The findings have relevance for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities such as ASD who exhibit challenging repetitive behavior such as SIB. Clinically, understanding how treatment approaches impact intervention success over longer time periods and improve practicality are important to individuals with ID and ASD. The proposed studies will provide more information regarding how to construct NCR- and DR-based interventions such that those treatments will result in increased improvements to long-term outcomes.