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Biomedical subjects

R L Koegel

Publications and source records attributed to R L Koegel.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2001

Identifying early intervention targets for children with autism in inclusive school settings.

This study assessed play and social behavior of young children with autism in inclusive school settings to identify important targets for intervention. Data were collected for five children with autism and for typically developing peers. All children with autism received intervention in one-on-one settings but did not have individual education plan goals that provided systematic intervention for developing play and social skills in their school settings. Results indicated the children with autism and their typically developing peers played with a comparable number of stimulus items (e.g., toys), but the children with autism engaged in these activities for shorter durations. Both children with autism and their typically developing peers engaged in similar levels of social interaction with adults. However, the children with autism rarely or never engaged in social interactions with their peers, whereas the typically developing peers frequently engaged in social interactions with other children. The results suggest important targets for intervention.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed2001

Pivotal areas in intervention for autism.

Discusses several core pivotal areas that appear to be influential in intervention for autism. Literature and outcome data are reviewed with respect to several core areas that appear to be particularly helpful in intervention for autism, including improving motivation, responsivity to multiple cues, self-management, and self-initiation of social interactions. A conceptual framework is described, and outcome data are reviewed suggesting that when children with autism are motivated to initiate complex social interactions, it may reverse a cycle of impairment, resulting in exceptionally favorable intervention outcomes for many children. Because the peripheral features of autism can be numerous and extensive, the concept of intervention for pivotal areas of functioning may be critical if children are to be habilitated in a time- and cost-efficient manner.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1998

Increasing speech intelligibility in children with autism.

Accumulating studies are documenting specific motivational variables that, when combined into a naturalistic teaching paradigm, reliably influence the effectiveness of language teaching interactions for children with autism. However, the effectiveness of this approach has not yet been assessed with respect to improving speech intelligibility. The purpose of this study was to systematically compare two intervention conditions, a Naturalistic approach (which incorporated motivational variables) vs. an Analog (more traditional, structured) approach, with developmentally similar speech sounds equated within and across conditions for each child. Data indicate that although both methods effectively increased correct production of the target sounds under some conditions, functional use of the target sounds in conversation occurred only when the naturalistic procedures were used during intervention. Results are discussed in terms of pivotal variables that may produce improvements in speech sounds during conversational speech.

Articulation Disorders↗
PubMed1998

Pivotal responses and the natural language teaching paradigm.

This article discusses the identification of pivotal behaviors for maximizing the impact of intervention for children with autism. Language deficits are not likely to make sufficient improvement unless pivotal variables, such as motivation, are addressed in the design of intervention programs. Pivotal target behaviors related to such children's motivation to engage in social communication are discussed, and their integration into a Natural Language Teaching Paradigm is described. Of particular interest are variables related to child choice, the use of natural reinforcers, the interspersal of maintenance trials to build behavioral momentum, and reinforcing communicative attempts. When used in combination to motivate the children to engage in and initiate communicative interactions, the impact on development can be considerable in terms of rate of acquisition, generalization of gains, and normalization of language development.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1998

Setting generalization of question-asking by children with autism.

We examined whether motivational procedures incorporated into teaching question-asking to children with autism, who lack verbal initiations, would result in generalization without additional teaching, prompting, or reinforcement in other settings. Specifically, we assessed whether such children could learn to use questions and whether the spontaneous use of question-asking would generalize across stimuli, settings, and people. All children learned to use questions in relation to items they had previously been unable to label and demonstrated generalization of spontaneous question-asking to new items and to their home environments with their mothers, with concomitant gains in expressive vocabulary. Results were discussed in terms of teaching response strategies, such as question-asking, to promote spontaneous child-initiated social interactions and expressive language development.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1997

Variables related to differences in standardized test outcomes for children with autism.

The purpose of this experiment was to assess whether manipulation of variables related to motivation and attention in children with autism would influence performance on standardized tests. Two different testing conditions were compared: One consisted of the usual standardized testing procedures; during the other, specific variables that were hypothesized to relate to each child's responsiveness to task stimuli were manipulated. Data were collected in the context of a repeated reversals experimental design with condition order varied within and across children. Six children participated in a total of 44 separate testing sessions, controlled for order of conditions, number of sessions, and type of test. Results showed consistent differences between the two conditions, suggesting that improving motivation and attention in children with autism may considerably influence test performance and interpretation. Findings are discussed in relation to the difficulty in administering and interpreting changes in performance on standardized tests with this population.

Attention↗
PubMed1996

Collateral effects of parent training on family interactions.

Recent research suggests that using naturalistic teaching paradigms leads to therapeutic gains in clinic settings for children with autism and related disorders. More recent studies are demonstrating that implementing these strategies within a parent training format may produce collateral effects in other areas of family life. The present experiment assessed collateral effects of two very different parent training paradigms during unstructured dinnertime interactions in the family setting. One paradigm focused on teaching individual target behaviors (ITB) serially, and the other focused on a recently developed naturalistic paradigm that teaches the pivotal responses (PRT) of motivation and responsivity to multiple cues. Two groups of families were randomly assigned to each of the parent training conditions. Pretraining and post-parent-training videotapes of dinnertime interactions were scored in a random order across four interactional scales (level of happiness, interest, stress, and style of communication). Results obtained for the four interactional scales showed that the families in both conditions initially scored in the neutral range, and the ITB training paradigm produced no significant influence on the interactions from pretraining to posttraining. In contrast, however the PRT parent training paradigm resulted in the families showing positive interactions on all four scales, with the parent-child interactions rated as happier, the parents more interested in the interaction, the interaction less stressful, and the communication style as more positive.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1992

Language intervention and disruptive behavior in preschool children with autism.

Disruptive behaviors are often exhibited by children with severe disabilities during difficult teaching tasks. Because learning verbal communication can be a difficult task for nonverbal children with autism, disruptive behaviors are common during such interventions. The purpose of this experiment was to assess whether the incorporation of parameters of natural language interactions and motivational techniques might reduce disruptive behavior during language teaching tasks. Within a repeated reversals design with order of conditions and number of sessions varied within and across children, treatment was conducted for two language teaching conditions. During one condition trials were presented serially in a traditional analog clinical format where the therapist presented instructions, prompts, and reinforcers for correct responses. The other condition incorporated parameters of natural language interactions and motivational techniques, such that stimulus items were functional and varied; natural reinforcers were employed; communicative attempts were reinforced; and trials were conducted within a natural interchange. Results showed that greater improvements in responding and considerably less (often negligible) disruptive behavior occurred during the natural language teaching conditions. Results are discussed with respect to their implications for improving language interventions, and with respect to reducing disruptive behavior without the need for specialized or severe interventions focused specifically on the disruptive behavior.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1992

Consistent stress profiles in mothers of children with autism.

The present study extends the area of research on stress in parents of autistic children. In this study we used the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress (Holroyd, 1987) to compare the stress profiles across mothers (a) who lived in different cultural and geographic environments; (b) who had children of different ages; and (c) who had children with different functioning levels. Results showed a characteristic profile that was highly consistent across each of these subgroups. Major differences from the normative data occurred on scales measuring stress associated with dependency and management, cognitive impairment, limits on family opportunity, and life-span care. Results suggest the importance of developing treatment programs aimed at reducing stress in specific areas in families with autistic children.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed1992

Improving social skills and disruptive behavior in children with autism through self-management.

The literature suggests that children with autism typically are unresponsive to verbal initiations from others in community settings, and that such unresponsiveness can lead to problematic social interactions and severely disruptive behavior. The present study assessed whether self-management could be used as a technique to produce extended improvements in responsiveness to verbal initiations from others in community, home, and school settings without the presence of a treatment provider. The results showed that children with autism who displayed severe deficits in social skills could learn to self-manage responsivity to others in multiple community settings, and that such improvements were associated with concomitant reductions in disruptive behavior without the need for special intervention. The results are discussed in terms of their significance for improved development of social skills in children with autism.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1992

Stress profiles for mothers and fathers of children with autism.

Stress profiles in 18 mothers vs 12 fathers of children with autism were compared on three measures, the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress, the Coping Health Inventory for Parents, and the Beck Depression Inventory. Mothers showed significantly more stress than fathers on each inventory, with a pattern suggesting stress may be related to the differing responsibility assigned to child rearing for each parent.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

Extended reductions in stereotypic behavior of students with autism through a self-management treatment package.

The literature suggests that self-management treatment packages have two potential strengths for the reduction or elimination of stereotypic behavior: (a) Self-management may be used for extended periods of time in the absence of a treatment provider, and (b) self-management techniques are easily adapated and used in a wide variety of natural settings. We assessed whether students with severe autistic disabilities could learn to use a self-management treatment package to reduce their stereotypic behavior within a multiple baseline across subjects design with withdrawals. The results showed that all of the students learned to use self-management procedures to reduce greatly levels of stereotypic behavior (typically to zero), and improvement occurred for extended periods of time in new settings without the presence of a treatment provider. The results are discussed in terms of the practical value of the treatment package and in terms of the implications for understanding autism.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1988

Producing speech use in nonverbal autistic children by reinforcing attempts.

It has been extremely difficult to teach speech to severely handicapped nonverbal autistic children. However, an overview of the literature suggests the possibility that selecting aspects of motivation as a central target behavior, rather than concentrating on motor speech production per se, may improve the effectiveness of teaching speech to these children. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to compare two different reinforcement conditions; one in which successive motor approximations of speech sounds were reinforced; and a "motivation" condition in which attempts to produce speech sounds were reinforced, without any motor shaping of speech. The results, replicated within a repeated reversal disign, showed that reinforcing speech attempts was more effective than reinforcing motor speech sounds with respect to (a) the children's interest, enthusiasm, happiness, and general behavior during treatment; and (b) improvements in the children's speech production. The results are discussed in terms of their relationship to the literature on normal parent-child speech interaction, success and failure, and learned helplessness.

Affect↗
PubMed1988

Within-clinic versus outside-of-clinic self-monitoring of articulation to promote generalization.

The purpose of this study was to assess the generalization of correct articulation to nontreatment environments when self-monitoring procedures were implemented within versus outside of the clinic setting. Seven children who substituted /theta/ and /o/ for /s/ and /z/ participated in this study. Data were collected in the context of a multiple baseline design replicated across subjects. The children initially self-monitored their correct articulation during conversation in the clinic setting where treatment was implemented. Then, after varying intervals, self-monitoring outside of the clinic setting was introduced as well. The results showed that when the children monitored their speech within the clinic setting only, no generalization of correct target sound production outside of the clinic setting occurred. However, after the children were required to monitor their speech outside of the clinic setting, rapid and widespread generalization was measured. These results are discussed in relation to practical and theoretical implications. Additional data collected on number of responses, the accuracy of the children's monitoring, and the percentage of correct responses are also discussed.

Child↗
PubMed1987

A natural language teaching paradigm for nonverbal autistic children.

The purpose of this study was to attempt to improve verbal language acquisition for nonverbal autistic children by manipulating traditional teaching techniques so they incorporated parameters of natural language interactions and motivational techniques. Within a multiple baseline design, treatment was conducted in a baseline condition with trials presented serially in a traditional analogue clinical format where the therapist presented instructions, prompts, and reinforcers for correct responses. Then, these variables were manipulated in the natural language teaching condition such that stimulus items were functional and varied, natural reinforcers were employed, communicative attempts were also reinforced, and trials were conducted within a natural interchange. Treatment and generalization data demonstrated that manipulation of these variables resulted in broadly generalized treatment gains. Implications for language intervention are discussed.

Autistic Disorder↗
PubMed1987

Maintaining performance of autistic clients in community settings with delayed contingencies.

To facilitate the classroom and workshop integration of three autistic clients, we examined the feasibility of teaching them to respond appropriately without the continual presence of specially trained treatment providers. Within a multiple baseline design, a 4-step treatment process was implemented to promote durable responsive performance. Results indicated that the therapist could be removed from the treatment environment and that appropriate behavior could be successfully maintained in community settings with only infrequent and delayed contingencies.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1987

The influence of child-preferred activities on autistic children's social behavior.

One of the characteristics of autistic children is severe social avoidance behavior. We assessed whether the type of activity (child-preferred vs. activities that were arbitrarily determined by an adult) engaged in during an interaction was correlated with the amount of social avoidance behaviors these children exhibit. Results revealed a negative correlation between appropriate child-preferred activities and social avoidance behavior. Additional analyses revealed that (a) social avoidance behaviors could be manipulated within a reversal design, and would predictably decrease when the children were prompted to initiate appropriate child-preferred activities; and (b) these procedures could be used to teach children to initiate child-preferred activities in community settings, resulting in reductions in social avoidance responses even after the therapist's prompts were completely removed. These data suggest that the manipulation of task variables may influence the severe social unresponsiveness that is characteristic of autistic children.

Adolescent↗