A Comparison of Two Procedures to Condition Social Stimuli to Function as Reinforcers for Children With Autism

Abstract

An interesting and growing body of literature supports the notion that symptoms in autism may be related to a general reduction in social motivation (Chevallier, Kohls, Troiani, Brodkin, & Schultz, 2012). A review of the literature suggests that social orienting and social motivation are low in individuals with autism, and that including social motivation as a target for therapeutic intervention should be pursued (Helt et al., 2008). Through our understanding of learning processes, researchers in behavior analysis and related fields have been able to use conditioning procedures to change the function of neutral social stimuli such as arbitrary facial expressions (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992) and nonreinforcing praise (Dozier, Iwata, Thomason-Sassi, Worsdell, & Wilson, 2012). The current study aimed to compare operant and respondent procedures in their effectiveness to condition previously neutral social stimuli to function as reinforcers. Using a multiple-baseline, multielement design, 1 social stimulus was conditioned under each procedure to compare the different response rates following conditioning. Six children diagnosed with autism between the ages of 18 months and 3 years participated. Results show that the respondent procedure (pairing) resulted in more robust and enduring effects than the operant procedure (discriminative stimulus procedure).