Analysis of three components of affective behavior in children with autism

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Highlights

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    We examined components of affective behavior in children with autism.

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    The components were verbal responding, vocal intonation, and facial expression.

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    Treatment implementation led to a systematic increase in appropriate responding.

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    Improvement occurred across trial types, affective categories, and participants.

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    Separating the components helps identify repertoires requiring more/less intervention.

Abstract

Affective behavior is a crucial ingredient for appropriate, sustainable social interactions. People with autism have deficits in social interaction that are apparent in nonverbal behavior. Few studies have applied behavioral procedures to increase appropriate affective responding in people with autism. This study adds to that literature by examining three components of affective behavior, thus reinforcing the notion that it is not only what the learner says (verbal responding), but also how she says it (vocal intonation); not only whether the learner makes eye contact with his conversation partner, but also how he presents himself (facial expression). A multiple-baseline design evaluated the effects of an affect-training program on the percentage of appropriate responding emitted by three children with autism. The program consisted of reinforcement, prompting, script-fading, and shaping procedures. The percentage of appropriate affective responding emitted by participants across categories increased systematically following treatment; so did performance on nonreinforced probes.

Section snippets

Participants

The participants were three male children enrolled at a private school for students with autism. All had a diagnosis of autism, from an independent agency. All had been at the school for at least 6 years, during which time they received behavioral intervention. All participants were responsive to their individualized motivational systems (described below); they responded well to instructions and they engaged in minimal stereotypic behavior. At the first baseline session, Andy was 13, Carl was

Results

The implementation of the affect-training program resulted in a systematic increase in appropriate affective responding from baseline to treatment (see Fig. 1, Fig. 3, Fig. 5). This improvement occurred in the three response components, during training and probe trials, and across categories and participants. With respect to generalization from training to probe trials, Andy (Fig. 2) freely generalized from training to probe trials since the beginning of the affect-training program. Carl (Fig. 4

Discussion

The present study demonstrated that systematic increases in affective displays occurred with the successive introduction of treatment across categories. Treatment effects generalized from training trials to probes, when different, nonreinforced affective stimuli were presented. With Carl and Marc, treatment effects generalized when affective stimuli, both training and probe trials, were presented by different therapists. Follow-up sessions demonstrated that performance across most components

Acknowledgements

These data were presented in a symposium at the 33rd annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, May 2007, in San Diego. This research was conducted in partial fulfillment of the doctoral degree in psychology by the first author at The Graduate Center, CUNY. The authors are indebted to the children who participated in this study; to their parents, for their enthusiasm about the results through the course of the study; and to Alison Kogut, Marta Perez, Kimberly Reyes, Jessica

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      In addition, they felt their children’s professional therapeutic interventions (e.g., applied behavior analysis) often neglected their children’s emotions and emotional development. The program acted for parents as an “added on” feature, providing a foundation for emotional development at home though the understanding of the relationship of (a) facial recognition (Betts, 2003; Martin, 2008); (b) facial expressions and emotions (Grossman et al., 2000; Lindner & Rosen, 2006; Richard et al., 2015); (c) emotional responsivity (Scambler, Hepburn, Rutherford, Wehner, & Roger, 2007); (d) the importance of emotional, motivational responsiveness for development (Kim et al., 2009); and (e) emotional responsivity connected to social relatedness and communication (Daou & Hady, 2016; Daou, 2014; Daou, Vener, & Poulson, 2014; DeQuinzio, Townsend, Sturmey, & Poulson, 2007; Gena, Krantz, McClannahan, & Poulson, 1996; Grossman et al., 2000; Hobson, Ouston, & Lee, 1988; Kahana-Kalman & Goldman, 2008; Klin, Jones, Schultz, Volkmar, & Cohen, 2002; Lindner & Rosen, 2006; Richard et al., 2015; Scambler et al., 2007). The program was a relationship-focused intervention for social-emotional functioning and development (Mahoney & Perales, 2003) using parents as agents, helping children to learn and make inferences about others’ nonverbal affective displays (i.e., emotional states such as facial expressions).

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