AUTISM AND DIFFERENCES IN BEHAVIORAL CONTROL BY CONTINGENCIES OF POSITIVE REINEN

自闭症和积极 Reinen 意外事件导致的行为控制差异

• 批准号: 7604733
• 负责人: LOUIS P. HAGOPIAN
• 金额: $ 0.05万
• 依托单位: JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-12-01 至 2007-09-16
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7604733
• 关键词: Autistic Disorder; Behavior Control; Behavioral; Characteristics; Communication; Complex; Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects Database; Educational process of instructing; Exclusion; Funding; Future; Grant; Impairment; Individual; Institution; Investigation; Laboratories; Learning; Measures; Mental Retardation; Methods; Operant Conditioning; Pattern; Performance; Process; Relative (related person); Research; Research Methodology; Research Personnel; Resources; Scientist; Series; Sorting - Cell Movement; Source; Specificity; Stereotyped Behavior; Stimulus; Testing; Translating; United States National Institutes of Health; Variant; Wisconsin; Work; autistic behaviour; base; clinical application; comparative; executive function; heuristics; neuropsychological; programs; psychologic; remediation; research study; social skills; theories

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. Autism has been characterized by deficits in communication and social skills, and restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped behavior patterns. Scientists from a variety of theoretical perspectives have sought to understand, explain and modify these deficits. For example, neuropsychological approaches have employed a variety of tests to examine how these impairments result from Executive Functioning (EF) deficits. Another approach, based on learning theory, has applied operant conditioning research methods in an attempt to show that the primary deficits characteristic of autism are related to problems with Discriminative Control (DC). Specifically, this work has focused on the identification and remediation of problems related to stimulus overselectivity, the tendency to respond to certain features of complex stimuli to the exclusion of others. This line of research has been translated into behavioral teaching strategies, that when applied as an intensive educational program, increase intellectual functioning and decrease autistic behavior. Aside from heuristic value and clinical application, both EF and DC represent schema for understanding the basis of the behavioral features of autism and their associated deficits. Similarly, deficits in EF and DC (e.g., stimulus overselectivity) may be functions of more fundamental psychological processes related to deficits in contingency control. We propose here a series of experiments to investigate the extent to which the behavioral deficits of autism reflect excessive behavioral persistence, decreased sensitivity to ongoing contingencies, and decreased behavioral variation, and will employ operant methods used traditionally in the laboratory. The use of these operant learning tasks will permit the quantitative analysis of performances, precise identification of deficits, and analysis of the specificity of these deficits as a function of autism, relative to control subjects without autism and with mental retardation. In an attempt to understand how the operant constructs being examined in the current study are related to EF deficits, performance on operant tasks will be compared with neuropsychological tasks traditionally used to examine EF deficits in autism. Moreover, by including measures that reliably show deficits among individuals with autism (specifically, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task and the Tower of Hanoi), performance differences on the operant tasks can be interpreted in the context of an established frame of reference. The proposed investigation can be used to set up future comparative research to contrast EF and operant approaches to the performance deficits displayed by individuals with autism.

该副本是利用众多研究子项目之一 由NIH/NCRR资助的中心赠款提供的资源。子弹和 调查员（PI）可能已经从其他NIH来源获得了主要资金， 因此可以在其他清晰的条目中代表。列出的机构是 对于中心，这不一定是调查员的机构。 自闭症的特征是沟通和社交技能的缺陷以及受限制，重复和刻板印象的行为模式的特征。从各种理论角度来看，科学家试图理解，解释和修改这些缺陷。例如，神经心理学方法采用了多种测试来检查这些障碍是如何由执行功能（EF）缺陷引起的。基于学习理论的另一种方法应用了操作调节研究方法，以表明自闭症的主要缺陷特征与判别控制问题（DC）有关。具体而言，这项工作集中在识别和补救与刺激过度选择性相关的问题，对复杂刺激的某些特征响应的趋势，以排除他人。这一研究已转化为行为教学策略，当用作强化教育计划时，增加了智力功能并减少自闭症行为。除了启发式价值和临床应用外，EF和DC都代表了理解自闭症行为特征及其相关缺陷的基础的模式。同样，EF和DC的缺陷（例如刺激过度选择性）可能是与偶然性控制缺陷有关的更基本心理过程的功能。我们在这里提出了一系列实验，以研究自闭症的行为缺陷在多大程度上反映了过度的行为持久性，对持续的意外事件的敏感性降低以及行为变化的降低，并将采用实验室中传统上使用的操作方法。这些操作人员学习任务的使用将允许对表现的定量分析，缺陷的精确识别以及这些缺陷的特异性分析是自闭症的函数，相对于没有自闭症的控制受试者，并且具有心理障碍。为了了解当前研究中正在研究的操作构造与EF缺陷有关，将在操作任务上的绩效与传统上用于检查自闭症中EF缺陷的神经心理学任务进行比较。此外，通过包括可靠地表现出自闭症患者（特别是威斯康星卡分类任务和河内塔）的措施，可以在既定的参考框架的上下文中解释操作任务上的绩效差异。拟议的调查可用于建立未来的比较研究，以对比EF和操作方法，以应对自闭症患者所表现出的绩效缺陷。