Analysis Of Using Multiple Schedules During Functional Communication Training

There are many different obstacles autism spectrum individuals have to overcome in their daily lives; social insecurities, eye contact, appropriate spatial awareness etc. But in most cases, their biggest hurdle is mostly their communication skills; it’s been shown that communication impairment is at the heart of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and that children with ASD can show a wide range of communication skills as discussed by Agius and Vance (2015). According to Agius and Vance, there is up to a 30% positive diagnosis of children with ASD who will forever remain nonverbal (no consistent verbal communication). With such a high percentage of ASD children it is recommended that their communication and learning needs are to be addressed by using the Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), it has been shown as an effective intervention that addresses individuals with ASD and their learning and communication needs (Ogletree, Morrow-Odom, & Westling, 2015). PECS has helped children and young adults with ASD communicate with those around them; their teachers, peers, parents etc.

People with Autism can have difficulties with trying to make friends. They tend to appear cold and aloof, and they prefer to be alone. [2] The service user will have difficulties talking to others and the service user might need other ways of communicating for example, they might need PECS to help them. The Picture Exchange Communication System helps people who struggle with their speech and need help identifying everyday things. PECS also helps the service user spell and distinguish different letters and their sounds.

The article “Reducing Behavior Problems Through Functional Communication Training” by Edward G. Carr and V. Mark Durand addresses the issues of choosing replacement behaviors. The research consisted of two experiments. The first experiment considered when problem behaviors are more likely to take place. The problem behaviors were aggression, tantrums, and self-injury. The results disclosed lack of adult attention and the difficultly of the task both activated behavioral problems. The second experiment used the assessment data collected from the first experiment to select a replacement behavior. The children were taught to verbally seek help, attention, or both from adults. The purpose of the study was to provide more direction when choosing a functionally appropriate replacement behavior in order to decrease inappropriate behaviors.

There is an ample amount of positive outcomes supporting the use of SI interventions in documented case studies, single subject experiments, and other less rigorous research, but there is still a lack of rigorous research that supports the efficacy of SI interventions. This lack of supporting evidence could be attributed to the diverse symptomatology of ASD, which makes it is extremely difficult to design a rigorous research proposal that is generalizable with strong psychometric data supporting the proposal. Filling this gap in research around the use of SI interventions in practice could facilitate the growth of the occupational therapy field by validating the SI interventions, which occupational therapists are most qualified to implement,

According to the data presented, the mean number of verbal utterances increased from the baseline number of 26.87 to the week 10 results of 41.94. This shows a statistically significant increase in utterances among all children tested. They also concluded that parents implementing the PRT, after learning in a group format, was more beneficial for targeting language deficits in their own children. This addresses the need for more parent involvement in the child's intervention plan and strategies. PRT is a great strategy for addressing verbal deficits in children with autism and provides the child with a naturalistic approach to verbal utterances and demands. Although the discussion provided a great summary of results and an insight to the benefits of PRT, it also highlighted many limitations of the experiment. The text states, "the study suffers from several methodological limitations including the small sample size and the absence of a control group" (Minjarez et al, 2010). The fact that the students could have also been receiving other interventions outside of this program could have been a factor to their success as well. With these limitations in mind, I still believe this to be a positive study because it brings to light the importance of implementing the parents in the intervention strategies. The children not only

How should an educator deal with behavioral disturbances? “Effects of Positive Unified Behavior Support on Instruction,” written by Scott, White, Algozzine and Algozzine (2009) discussed this topic. The article discussed teachers use of Positive Behavior Support, PBS, as a means to help minimize behavior problems, as well as improve social and learning outcomes.

The Shamlian et al. study compared the effects of discriminative stimuli on functional communication responses (FCR) and the ability for participants to generalize between busy and non-busy activities. Treatment consisted of FCT training, applied using a multiple schedule, amongst natural and therapist-arranged SDs. Experimenters applied an A-B-A-B design to determine the effectiveness of FCT plus extinction, to reduce the number of problem behaviors displayed during busy and non-busy conditions. Intervention was employed across three participants diagnosed with ASD, at an outpatient facility. Analyzing Figure 2, baseline levels varied for all clients: low for Maurice, low and slightly varied for Bernard, and moderate and varied for Keith.

The authors chose three 3 to 7 years olds children with autism and 1 child with developmental delays whom attended a public preschool with an ASD program for at least 80% of the research days over 4 months. The children had the ability of imitate a single work, identifiable reinforces and had not been exposed formerly to IF procedures. The school program served students 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. All trial session were conduct one-to-one in an separate work area of the classroom. The research began with initial assessments of each student, followed by instruction. The first experiment was conducted with PPDs and not IF;

As a therapist I aim to discover the function of maladaptive behavior and not only reduce the problematic behavior, but also increase supplementary adaptive behaviors. This approach

Picture exchange communication system (PECS) is a form of system that teaches individuals with autism who are unable to communicate through speech. This is method in which pictures are exchange to communicate their needs and wants to minimize frustrations and social isolation. A child who is unable to communicate their needs or wants through speech can be taught how to use PECS to get what they want.

RPMT is the other treatment condition. It is a communication intervention established to advance intended communication in children who have developmental delays. RPMT aim is on establishing object-focused play procedures that then serves as the context for promoting and rewarding children’s use of requesting actions. The RPMT clinician also demonstrates the use of gestures in declarative contexts. In the RPMT treatment condition, to help support “across-person generalization”, a leading clinician two days a week would engaged with the child, and for once a week another clinician engaged with the child. When children used at least one unplanned act of requesting and initiating joint attention per minute during the treatment session, “milieu

Jones, Lerman, and Lechago's conclusion seems to be supported by their results (2014). However, though the study was conducted well under the circumstances, the pool of participants was small (2014). The study also had several limitations, like being conducted at a center focused on behavior therapy (2014). Hopefully, this study

FCT has been shown to be effective when used with individuals of all ages. From children as young as 3 years old to adults, FCT is an effective way to increase communication, independence and the quality of life for many individuals including those with ASD’s. Through FCT, learners are taught appropriate behaviors to use in place of problem behaviors that serve the same function. An FBA should be completed to determine if a proposed replacement behavior will serve the same function before implementing this strategy.

Functional communication training is a reinforcement procedure designed to teach functionally equivalent, socially acceptable verbal responses that replace inappropriate or disruptive behaviors (Schieltz et al., 2011). These replacement behaviors typically involve appropriately asking for something that the individual wants, such as forms of attention or temporary escape from an aversive task. There are many reasons to implement FCT; it’s easy to implement, it can address a variety of problem behaviors in the classroom, it’s easily catered to the individual, it can improve communication in typically developing individuals, as well as children with mental or developmental disabilities, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

In the article “Reducing Behavior Problems Through Functional Communication Training” the authors Carr and Durand conduct two experiments with the goal of identifying and replacing problem behaviors in educational formats. As stated in the article this study has a dual purpose. The first, was to develop a method for identifying and assessing the educational situations in which behavior problems reliably occur and, second, to use the assessment information in order to select replacement behaviors (Carr & Durand, 1985, p.112). The participant in this study were children from a day school program which was developed for mentally disabled children. These children were interviewed and the first four children that met the criteria were chosen. The criteria for this study was that they displayed a minimum of one problem behavior per