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Biomedical subjects

O I Lovaas

Publications and source records attributed to O I Lovaas.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Intensive behavioral treatment for preschoolers with severe mental retardation and pervasive developmental disorder.

From archival records, we assessed outcomes achieved by preschoolers with both severe mental retardation and autistic features: (a) an experimental group (n = 11), which received intensive behavioral treatment, and (b) a comparison group (n = 10), which received minimal treatment. At intake (mean CA = 3.08 years), the groups did not differ significantly on any variable. At follow-up children in the experimental group obtained a higher mean IQ and evinced more expressive speech than did those in the comparison group. Behavior problems diminished in both groups. Results indicate that intensively treated children achieved clinically meaningful gains relative to the comparison group but remained quite delayed.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1993

The development of a treatment-research project for developmentally disabled and autistic children.

This paper describes the development and main results over the last 30 years from the treatment-research project with developmentally disabled (autistic) children in the Psychology Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Three important dimensions in treatment research are addressed. The first pertains to the role of serendipity or accidental discoveries, the second to the importance of pursuing inductive rather than theory-driven research, and the third to the importance of adding in a cumulative and step-wise manner to improve treatment adequacy. Data from various areas of treatment research have been used to illustrate new directions for the project. These illustrations center on early and successful attempts to isolate experimentally the environmental variables that control self-injury, failure to observe response and stimulus generalization with subsequent loss of treatment gains, and the main results of intensive and early behavioral intervention in the child's natural environment. Effective treatment for severe behavioral disorders is seen to require early intervention carried out during all or most of the child's waking hours, addressing all significant behaviors in all of the child's environments, by all significant persons, for many years.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1993

Long-term outcome for children with autism who received early intensive behavioral treatment.

After a very intensive behavioral intervention, an experimental group of 19 preschool-age children with autism achieved less restrictive school placements and higher IQs than did a control group of 19 similar children by age (Lovaas, 1987). The present study followed-up this finding by assessing subjects at a mean age of 11.5 years. Results showed that the experimental group preserved its gains over the control group. The 9 experimental subjects who had achieved the best outcomes at age 7 received particularly extensive evaluations indicating that 8 of them were indistinguishable from average children on tests of intelligence and adaptive behavior. Thus, behavioral treatment may produce long-lasting and significant gains for many young children with autism.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1992

The autistic label and its potentially detrimental effect on the child's treatment.

This study asks whether adults teach a child labeled "autistic" differently from a child labeled "normal". Twenty undergraduate college students served as student-teachers. Results showed that the student-teachers gave significantly more praise and reward marbles for incorrect responses, as well as significantly less verbal correction, when the child was labeled "autistic". The inference is that such treatment could make it more difficult for the autistic child to acquire new skills.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Transfer of staff training from workshops to group homes: a failure to generalize across settings.

Two experiments were conducted to assess acquisition and generalization of skills acquired in a workshop by trainees who were primary caregivers on the staffs of group homes for developmentally disabled clients. In Study 1, 31 staff trainees received an intensive, 1-week workshop in behavioral theory and treatment techniques. When assessed at the workshop site, these staff trainees showed increased treatment skills, relative to 18 staff trainees who did not participate in the workshop. In Study 2, pre- and postworkshop observations were taken on 53 developmentally disabled clients in group homes where the staff trainees worked. These observations provided no evidence that the workshop had any effect on group home client functioning. Future training programs for caregivers may be more successful if they occur in the group home, involve clients in the home, and enlist the support of supervisory staff, rather than focusing only on primary caregivers.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1989

A comprehensive behavioral theory of autistic children: paradigm for research and treatment.

Although behavioral treatment is the most effective intervention currently available for autistic children, there have been no attempts to present a comprehensive behavioral theory of autistic children since Ferster (1961). The present paper is intended to fill this gap. Behavioral work is distinguished from traditional work with autistic children in three ways: (a) it focuses on specific behaviors rather than on the diagnostic entity of autism; (b) it emphasizes the immediate environment rather than etiology or early history; and (c) research is inductive rather than hypothetico-deductive. The behavioral theory derived from such work has four tenets: (a) autistic children's behaviors are consistent with laws of learning derived from the behavior of other organisms; (b) autistic children have many separate behavioral difficulties best described as a developmental delay; (c) despite their difficulties, many autistic children learn as much as other human beings in certain environments; and (d) their difficulties can be viewed as a mismatch between a deviant nervous system and average or typical environments rather than as a disease. A number of practical and theoretical problems remain that require further research and that would add to the present theory.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1989

Clarifying comments on the young autism study: reply to Schopler, Short, and Mesibov.

Lovaas (1987) has been criticized for overstating the outcome of an intensive behavioral intervention for young autistic children. Part of the criticism reflects skepticism of Lovaas's view that it is possible to overcome autistic children's deficits. However, Lovaas's study built on a substantial body of research that has suggested just such a possibility. It also contained a number of methodological features that provide evidence supporting his interpretation of the outcome, notably, unbiased control groups and multiple pretreatment and follow-up measures.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1988

The right to effective behavioral treatment.

We propose that individuals who are recipients or potential recipients of treatment designed to change their behavior have the right to a therapeutic environment, services whose overriding goal is personal welfare, treatment by a competent behavior analyst, programs that teach functional skills, behavioral assessment and ongoing evaluation, and the most effective treatment procedures available.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1987

A neurobiological nonalternative: rejoinder to Lewis, Baumeister, and Mailman.

Certain misrepresentations of our theory of self-stimulatory behavior by Lewis, Baumeister, and Mailman (1987) are corrected and several questions raised by the commentators are answered. Their proposed neurobiological alternative is considered briefly and judged to be insufficiently detailed, inadequate in scope, and therefore premature.

Humans↗
PubMed1985

Changes in self-stimulatory behaviors with treatment.

For four of six autistic children who underwent intensive behavioral treatment, the nature of their self-stimulatory behavior changed from initial "low-level" motor behaviors (such as rocking, spinning, twirling) to differing kinds of "higher-level" behaviors (such as lining of objects, echolalic speech, and preoccupation with spelling and numerical values). The children who changed to the highest levels of self-stimulatory behavior also showed the largest gains in treatment (as determined by IQ scores, school placement, etc.). The changes in self-stimulatory behaviors were attributed to the intense teaching of appropriate social behaviors and the explicit therapeutic suppression of low-level, self-stimulatory behaviors. The long-term therapeutic effects of changing from lower- to higher-level forms of self-stimulatory behavior were discussed.

Achievement↗
PubMed1983

Some social contexts of self-destructive behavior.

This study investigated the social context of self-injurious behavior in autistic, schizophrenic, and mentally retarded children residing in a state hospital. Social interactions between subjects and staff were recorded along with subjects' self-destructive behavior. The results showed a substantial increase in self-destructive behavior following the staff's presentation of demands, denials, and punishments in 19 of the 20 subjects. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that self-injurious behavior is a social behavior, which is determined by persons in the environment. In addition, the self-destructive behavior of one subject may have been largely self-stimulatory in nature.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

An analysis of observational learning in autistic and normal children.

The present investigation studied observational learning in autistic children. Fifteen autistic and 15 normal children watched an adult model engage in a set of behaviors under specific verbal instructions. After observing this situation, the children were tested to determine what they had acquired through observation. The results showed that (1) the majority of the autistic and the youngest normal children acquired only some limited features of the observational situation and (2) chronological age was related to the amount of learning through observation in the normal children but not in the autistics. The deficit that the autistic children showed in observational learning may be related to a failure to discriminate or attend to the total stimulus input presented. Their failure in observational learning can be seen to contribute in a major way to the severely impoverished behavioral repertoires of these children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1978

A comparison of human and automated instruction of autistic children.

While it appears reasonable to assume that the autistic child might benefit from the development of programmed instruction and teaching machines to teach imitation, concepts, and receptive vocabulary skills, no systematic research to date has seriously investigated such possibilities. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of automated versus teacher-controlled instruction in the education of autistic children. Four autistic children, each with extreme deficits in language, social, and self-care behaviors, were trained on a matching-to-sample task under three different instructional situations within an intrasubject replication design and multiple baseline procedure. Analysis of the data showed the following results: (1) The teacher, manually operating the teaching machine, was able to teach and maintain the matching-to-sample task; (2) the same autistic children did not acquire or maintain the task when taught by the machine alone; and (3) the teacher alone (without the machine) was able to teach and maintain the task. The results suggest that automated instruction may, at least, serve as a valuable aid to teachers of autistic children. However, before machines can be used without the participation of a trained teacher, further research appears necessary. Several areas, including the role of motivation in automated instructional settings, the saliency and effectiveness of reinforcers, and the importance of controlling antecedent stimulus conditions and off-task behavior are discussed as areas of primary concern in the development of automated instruction for autistic children.

Adolescent↗