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Salows And Graupner

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Introduction: A new study by Glen O. Sallows and Tamlynn D. Graupner with the Wisconsin Early Autism Project provides further evidence that earlier intervention for autism increases the likelihood that a child will make significant gains in educational, social and communication skills. The report appears in the American Journal on Mental Retardation. The purpose of Sallows and Graupner’s study is to answer “whether or not the UCLA results can be replicated without the use of aversives. Whether or not the UCLA results can be replicated through a community-based operating program without resources or support from a university center, and if a treatment response can be predicted from pre-treatment variables? (Sallows & Graupner, 2005). The …show more content…

All the children that were selected met a particular criterion: 1. The age at intake was between 24 and 42 months, 2. The children feel within a ratio estimate measured by mental age (MA) divided by chronological age (CA) of the mental development index of 35 or higher; the index used is from the Bayley Scales of Infant Development because almost all the children scored below the lowest mental development index of 50. 3. The children were neurologically within “normal” limits. 4. All the children met the criteria for …show more content…

The multiple baseline procedure requires that baselines be provided for several different responses and that these responses be independent of each other. The advantage of using the multiple baseline designs is that a withdrawal phase is not used nor required with this procedure, the treatment of each response following the establishment of the baseline is essentially an ABAB design. Thus, a generalization of behavioral change is monitored throughout the study. “Thirteen children began treatment in 1996, 11 in 1997” (Sallows & Graupner, 2005, p. 420) Phase A focused on two IQ measures to determine the baseline, the first test was the Bayley Scales of Infant Development and the second was Merrill-Palmer Scale of Mental Tests. The children were on average 33 to 34 months of age, and they also gathered data "from parent interviews, reports from other professionals, and direct observation" (Sallows & Graupner, 2005, pp. 420-421) to determine the pretreatment presence of functional speech at pretest. Additionally, "the second author administered the pretreatment assessment battery prior to children being assigned to treatment groups. She received training in assessment at UCLA and met criterion for satisfactory intertester reliability.” (Sallows & Graupner, 2005,

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