An Evaluation of Teaching Individuals with Autism to Accept

Abstract

Challenging behavior may be evoked in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities when requests for items or activities are denied or delayed. When a problem behavior is evoked by denied access to items or activities, an individual’s inability to accept ”no” can be problematic and lead to high rates of challenging behavior. However, there has been limited empirical research conducted to examine methods of teaching individuals to accept “no” when access to preferred items or activities is denied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of two methods of teaching an individual to accept “no” to minimize an individual’s challenging behavior when access to preferred items, activities and edibles was denied or delayed. A response class hierarchy (RCH) assessment was initially conducted to determine which challenging behavior to target. The three individuals assessed, only one individual’s behaviors occurred in a clear, predictable hierarchy. A” no” with an alternative and a “yes” with contingency intervention were then implemented with all three individuals and compared to determine which method was most effective in reducing challenging behavior. For one of the participants, both treatments worked a majority of the time. Low levels of challenging behavior were seen during each treatment. For another participant both treatments worked equally and for the last participant, the "yes" with contingency appeared to be the most effective intervention and led to the lowest rates of challenging behavior. These results suggest that by either arranging contingencies or presenting an individual with alternatives, frequency of challenging behavior may be reduced.