SETTING GENERALITY AND STIMULUS CONTROL IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN1

TLDR

The study aimed to evaluate whether treatment gains in autistic children generalize to new settings and to identify stimulus‑control factors that hinder transfer. Ten children were trained in a treatment room, their transfer to an extra‑therapy setting was tested, and those who failed underwent a stimulus‑control analysis using a reversal design to pinpoint functional stimuli. Four children failed to transfer, showing selective responding to incidental stimuli, but responded correctly in the extra‑therapy setting when those stimuli were introduced, highlighting extreme selective responding and its implications for setting generality.

Abstract

This study was designed to assess the transfer of treatment gains of autistic children across settings. In the first phase, each of 10 autistic children learned a new behavior in a treatment room and transfer to a novel extra‐therapy setting was assessed. Four of the 10 children showed no transfer to the novel setting. Therefore, in the second phase, each child who failed to transfer participated in an analysis of stimulus control in order to determine the variables influencing the deficit in transfer. Each of the four children who did not transfer were selectively responding to an incidental stimulus during the original training in the treatment room. Utilizing a reversal design, each of the four children responded correctly in the extra‐therapy setting when the stimulus that was functional during training was identified and introduced into the extra‐therapy setting. The extreme selective responding and the resulting bizarre stimulus control found are discussed in relation to the issue of setting generality of treatment gains.