Patient Outcomes After Applied Behavior Analysis for Autism Spectrum Disorder PMC
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During the baseline phase, they observed the students for 10-minute periods each day during lunch recess and counted the number of aggressive behaviors they exhibited toward their peers. (The researchers used handheld computers to help record the data.) After 2 weeks, they implemented the program at one school. They found that the number of aggressive behaviors exhibited by each student dropped shortly after the program was implemented at his or her school.
What Makes Children with Autism Exceptionally Intelligent?
Data is collected and analyzed to determine if the intervention is having the desired impact. They measured, they implemented treatment, and the behavior changed because the treatment was successful. They think they did an experimentally sound design, but because the behavior didn’t do what the design requires to get experimental control, they really don’t have experimental control with their design.
What is ABA and ABAB Design in Applied Behavior Analysis?
The intervention can involve various strategies such as implementing behavior modification techniques, providing therapy, or delivering specific interventions tailored to the individual's needs. The intervention phase allows researchers to assess the impact of the treatment on the behavior and determine whether it leads to desired changes. The ABAB design, also referred to as the withdrawal design, is another widely utilized approach in applied behavior analysis. It involves multiple intervention phases (B) interspersed with baseline phases (A), providing a more robust evaluation of treatment effects. The most basic single-subject research design is the reversal design, also called the ABA design.
How does ABA therapy work?
Evidence for experimental control is not always as compelling from a visual analysis perspective. This was showcased in the Tincani et al. (2006) study discussed previously. In many cases, the clinical significance of behavior change between conditions is less clear and, therefore, is open to interpretation. One disadvantage of all designs that involve two or more interventions or independent variables is the potential for multiple-treatment interference. This occurs when the same participant receives two or more treatments whose effects may not be independent.
Additionally, many clinicians/educators prefer the ABAB design because the investigation ends with a treatment phase rather than the absence of an intervention. The ABAB design, also referred to as the withdrawal design, involves multiple intervention phases (B) interspersed with baseline phases (A), providing a more robust evaluation of treatment effects. In this design, the intervention is introduced during the first intervention phase (B) after a baseline phase (A). Next, the intervention is withdrawn, returning to the baseline phase (A) to observe whether the behavior returns to its initial baseline level. Finally, the intervention is reintroduced, and the behavior is observed again. In this phase, an intervention or treatment is introduced with the aim of modifying the behavior being studied.
In contrast, the reversal design requires the active reversal of the intervention conditions. When such changes are large and immediate, visual inspection is relatively straightforward, as in all three graphs in Figure 1. If only the average performance during each phase is considered, each of these graphs includes a between-phase change in level. But if the dependent variable changes when the treatment is introduced for multiple participants—especially when the treatment is introduced at different times for the different participants—then it is unlikely to be a coincidence. The ABA design is effective for demonstrating experimental control and the effectiveness of interventions on behavior.
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The issues related to multiple-treatment interference are also relevant with the ATD because the dependent variable is exposed to each of the independent variables, thus making it impossible to disentangle their independent effects. To ensure that the selected treatment remains effective when implemented alone, a final phase demonstrating the effects of the best treatment is recommended (Holcombe & Wolery, 1994), as was done in the study by Conaghan et al., 1992. Nevertheless, outcome behaviors must be readily reversible if differentiation between conditions is to be demonstrated.
Medical Conditions Associated with Autism
(Note that averaging across participants is less common.) Another approach is to compute the percentage of non-overlapping data (PND) for each participant (Scruggs & Mastropieri, 2001)[4]. The greater the percentage of non-overlapping data, the stronger the treatment effect. The ABAB design provides the opportunity to demonstrate the repeatability and effectiveness of a treatment.
General Features of Single-Subject Designs
A decreasing trend in signing and an increasing trend in hand biting were observed. In the third phase of the component analysis, the FCTcomponent was removed, leaving time-out and differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO). Again, a decreasing trend in signing and an increasing trend in hand biting were observed, which were again reversed when the full treatment package was applied.
Understanding these differences can help practitioners determine which design is most appropriate for their specific needs. Following the intervention phase, the ABAB design includes a return to baseline phase. In this phase, the intervention is removed, and the individual's behavior is once again measured without the treatment in place.
This withdrawal and reintroduction process allows for a more robust evaluation of treatment effects. The key to this design is that the treatment is introduced at a different time for each participant. One solution to these problems is to use a multiple-baseline design, which is represented in Figure 10.4. Our predictor variables were ABA dose and service history (past and current receipt of ABA, past and current receipt of special education, speech therapy, occupational therapy). ABA recommendations were sometimes recorded in clinical reports as number of hours and sometimes recorded as number of sessions; thus, we examined ABA dose as the overall percentage of hours or sessions prescribed that were actually received.
The earliest forms of ABA therapy often utilized negative reinforcement and punishment when children failed to display the desired behaviors. His approach was that behavioral and social skills could be taught while other behaviors could be extinguished by applying rewards and consequences. ABA therapy is rooted in the principles of behaviorism, particularly operant conditioning and the use of rewards and consequences to mold behavior. During the 1950s and 1960s, mental health professionals began utilizing principles like token economies in the treatment of conditions such as schizophrenia and developmental disabilities. In case study reports, procedures used in treatment of a particular client’s behavior are documented as carefully as possible, and the client’s progress toward habilitation or rehabilitation is reported. Single-subject studies should not be confused with case studies or other non-experimental designs.
It offers stronger evidence of the effectiveness of a treatment, as changes in behavior can be attributed to the introduction and removal of the intervention [2]. This evidence-based approach is essential in determining the most successful intervention methods. By comparing the baseline phase (A) with the intervention phase (B), and then returning to the baseline phase (A), the ABA design helps establish a functional relationship between the intervention and the changes in behavior.
As a result, any increases observed during the intervention phase may simply be a continuation of that trend rather than the result of the manipulation of the independent variable. This underscores the importance of “good” baseline data, and, in particular, of the need to continue collecting baseline data to eliminate the possibility that any trends observed are likely to continue in the absence of an intervention. The use of single-subject experimental designs (SSEDs) has a rich history in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) research.
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