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Examining Restricted And Repetitive Behavior In Children With Autism: A Descriptive Study, Dawn Deann Detweiler

Masters Theses

This exploratory study examined the specific topographies and corresponding demographic information of restricted, repetitive and stereotyped behaviors, interests and activities of children with autism, and evaluated developmental differences between age groups. Previous literature has largely neglected this core feature of autism despite the need, and frequent call for such foundational data (Bodfish et al., 2000; Kennedy et al., 2000; Mercier et al., 2000; Turner, 1999). Participants included primary caregivers of 104 children who met DSM-IV-TR criteria for autism (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) and ranged in age from 3 to 7 years (M = 4. 7). The behaviors reported as occurring …

Reinforcement Schedules Modulate Discriminative Stimulus Properties Of 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine And Cocaine, Daniel Kueh

Masters Theses

Drug discrimination is a model used to assess the subjective effects of different psychoactive drugs such as 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and cocaine. However, results from MDMA discrimination studies across different laboratories have not been consistent. Possible confounds for this inconsistency may include the use of different reinforcement schedules such as the fixed-ratio 20 (FR20) and the variable interval 15 seconds (VI15 s) during discrimination training. Studies examining the effects of these two schedules on the discriminative stimulus properties of MDMA and cocaine have not been conducted. Thus, the present study compared the FR20 and the VI15 s schedules to determine their …

Assessing The Differential Outcomes Procedure With Children Diagnosed With Autism, Ivy M. Chong

Dissertations

The differential outcomes effect (DOE) refers to the phenomenon whereby discrimination learning is enhanced when a correct response to a specific sample stimulus is followed by its own unique reward (Savage, 2001). According to some researchers, the DOE is a consistent and powerful effect that enhances the acquisition and retention of conditional discriminations (e.g., Urcuioli, 1990). This series of experiments sought to extend research on the DOE. In Experiment 1, we examined the differential outcomes procedure (DOP) with four children diagnosed with autism across various task types commonly used in early intervention. In Experiment 2, we examined the DOP with …

Representation Of The Elderly In Counselor Education Textbooks, Alicia V. Fahr

Dissertations

The counseling profession requires multicultural competence in meeting the needs of diverse groups. The responsibility for training counseling students to work effectively with the elderly falls upon counselor educators. Textbooks convey cultural values and contribute to what is learned by students. Specifically,textbooks may contribute to how counseling students think about older adults and aging issues. This study was designed to determine how older adults and aging issues are represented in counselor education texts.

The textbooks used most frequently by 11 randomly selected master's degree programs accredited by the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (2001) were identified …

A Multicomponent Intervention System Using Goal Setting, Feedback, And Incentives To Improve Performance In Small Service Businesses, Doug Lafleur

Dissertations

A small business servicing dealerships in the chimney lining industry was responsible for training and resupplying contractors in a propriety chimney lining system. A process was developed for sharing and comparing the dealerships' financial reports and business processes. The process involved a small group of dealers attending regular 6-month meetings called Impact Groups. A monetary incentive system was used to encourage dealers to join the Impact Groups and to maintain continued attendance and participation. Dealers took turns hosting the meetings and having the attending dealers analyze their business. A detailed list of problems and solutions was provided to each host …

Common Sense Parenting (Csp) Learn At Home Kit: A Clinical Effectiveness Evaluation Of A Commercially Available Video Training Program For Parents, Sean T. Smitham

Dissertations

Much has been made of the gap between psychotherapy research and clinical practice. Most current psychotherapy research is focused on what could be viewed as macro-level efficacy type issues, while practicing clinicians are often most concerned with micro-level effectiveness questions. The current study-an evaluation of a parent training (PT) program provides an example of how scientist-practitioners can contribute meaningfully to psychotherapy research by conducting small scale clinical effectiveness studies. Parent Training (PT) is a well established efficacious treatment approach for child disruptive behaviors and non-compliance. Recent research has also established that self-administered videotape PT programs may also be efficacious. A …

A Multicomponent Intervention System Using Human Performance Technology Concepts To Improve Performance In Small Service Businesses, Doug Lafleur

Masters Theses

A small business servicing dealerships in the chimney lining industry was responsible for training and resupplying contractors in a propriety chimney lining system. A process was developed for sharing and comparing the dealerships' financial reports and business processes. The process involved a small group of dealers attending regular 6- month meetings called Impact Groups. Dealers took turns hosting the meetings and having the attending dealers analyze their business. A detailed list of problems and solutions was provided to each host business.

Evaluating Progress In Behavioral Programs For Children With Pervasive Developmental Disorders: Continuous Versus Intermittent Data Collection, Anne Rena Cummings

Dissertations

It is well documented that intensive behavioral treatment of early childhood autism can result in significant improvements in adaptive behavior. The typical teaching format in such programs is based on the restricted operant (i.e., discrete trial) in which the performance of an exemplar skill follows a clear instruction and precedes programmed reinforcement or error correction. Because of the often-intensive nature of behavioral treatment, it is not unusual for thousands of learning opportunities to be presented each week. There currently exists a professional debate regarding the frequency of data collection necessary in autism treatment programs. One side of the argument favors …

Effects Of Nicotine And Anatoxin-A Exposures On The Operant Performance Of Rats, Kimberly Ann Jarema

Dissertations

Tolerance has previously been shown to develop to nicotine's effects on operant behavior. This experiment explored whether tolerance would still develop when nicotine administrations were separated by three weeks. Anatoxin-a, a nicotinic-receptor agonist, was also tested and the results were compared to nicotine. Male Long Evans rats performed under a multiple VR30 VI30-sec food-reinforcement schedule. Phase I rats were divided into 6 groups of 8 that received four weekly subcutaneous injections of nicotine (0.0-1.8 mg/kg) and anatoxin-a (0-250 mcg/kg) prior to testing sessions. An ED50 was derived, for each compound, from the VR dose-response curve. Phase II rats were divided …

Examining The Behavioral And Physiological Components Of Communication Skills Training With Married Couples: Are Differential Effects Mediated By The Topic Discussed And Initial Level Of Marital Distress?, Tara L. Cornelius

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to experimentally examine the effects of the Speaker-Listener technique when the couple was instructed to either (a) discuss an issue within, or (b) outside the marriage, on couples’ initial and long-term levels of marital distress and satisfaction. This study was designed to examine Gottman, et al. (1998) hypothesis that the Speaker-Listener skills training technique may be effective and lead to improved levels of marital satisfaction when the couple is complaining about a third party, but complaining about each other may become divisive and weaken the marital relationship, and that such an effect would …

The Effects Of Task Structure And Group Target Monetary Incentives On Social Loafing, Nelson R. Eikenhout

Dissertations

Social loafing refers to the decrease in individual performance output that occurs when individuals perform a task in groups in which the output is pooled. Pooled output refers to the performance of all group members added together to get a total group output. Therefore, because all group members contribute to a single group outcome, individual performance output is obscured. This study examined the following questions. First, what are the effects of the method of pooling the output (additive vs. disjunctive) on individuals who work on a concurrent task in small groups? Second, what are the effects of group target based …

A Behavioral Account Of Remembering: Precurrent Behavior And Mediation Of Delayed Matching To Sample, David W. Sidener

Dissertations

Although “memory” research and theory often come under the domain of cognitive psychology, these areas may also be seen as being open to radical behavioral interpretations. Delayed matching to sample (DMTS) preparations have often been used to study performance that involves the occurrence of behavior some time after the presentation of a relevant stimulus, or what is typically called short-term memory (STM). The current study involved three experiments that provided evidence for the role of overt behavior in the mediation of DMTS performance in five-year-old children. Experiments 1 and 2 support the assertion that sample-specific, differential mediating behavior (in the …

Dietary Exposure To Aroclor 1254 Impairs Radial Arm Maze Acquisition And Performance In Rats, Danielle M. Paris-Larson

Masters Theses

Exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) is suspected to produce long lasting cognitive deficits in children and adults. This study assessed the effects of dietary exposure to a commercial mixture of PCBs on spatial learning and memory in Fisher 344 rats. Aroclor 1254 (0, 10, 50 ppm) was administered for 28 consecutive days in the daily diet. Seven days after the last dietary exposure, acquisition training began in an eight-arm radial maze. Following 28 days of acquisition training, "working" memory was assessed using a delayed win/shift procedure. Each delay (20 minutes, 2 hours, and 6 hours) was examined on three consecutive …

A Comparison Of The Shopping Preferences Of College Age Apparel Shoppers In Turkey And The United States, William C. Perrine

Masters Theses

This study compared the store attribute preferences of college-age apparel shoppers in Turkey with those of their United States counterparts. The American respondents were selected from a convenience sample of students from a Midwestern university. The Turkish respondents consisted of a convenience sample of undergraduate and graduate students from two urban universities. Ninety-six surveys were given in Turkey and 113 were given in the United States to currently enrolled female and male undergraduate and graduate students between the ages of 17 and 51, yielding 204 usable surveys at a 97 percent response rate. Twenty-one shopping preferences were included in the …

Role Of Naming In Stimulus Categorization By Preschool Children, Caio Flavio Miguel

Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to assess whether children would categorize pictures when taught the relevant listener and speaker behaviors separately. A category-sort test was used to assess emergent conditional relations. Category-sort trials consisted of looking at (Test 1) or tacting/labeling (Test 2) a samplestimulus and selecting the appropriate comparison stimuli. In Experiment 1, 4 children (3- 5 years) were taught to tact pictures of six U.S. state maps as either north or south. An assessment was conducted to determine whether they would (1) correctly categorize or sort when presented with a visual sample and (2) select the …

Exploring The Relationship Between Race-Related Stress, Identity And Well-Being Among African Americans, Darrick Tovar-Murray

Dissertations

For almost four hundred years, African Americans have been victims of race-related stress. Race-related stress is defined as the encounters between individuals and their environment that surface from racism and strain an individual's resources or threaten his or her well-being. Despite findings on the negative impact of racism on African Americans' well-being, very little research has focused on the relationships between race-related stress, identity and well-being among African Americans.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between race-related stress, identity, and well-being among African Americans. A total of 196 African American community members and college students participated …

Negative Stereotypes And Childhood Paternal Relationships As Predictors Of Paternal Identity In African American Fathers, Danielle K. Wright

Dissertations

African American men have been widely ignored in the social science literature. When African American men have been studied, it has primarily been from a deficit model. The purpose of this study was to give voice to the African American father, whether he is working-poor, middle-class, or upper-class, biological or non-biological, residential or non-residential. The intent of the study was to explore how African American men view themselves as fathers and their own experiences of being a parent.

One hundred and one men who identified as African American, were at least 18 years old, and who had at least one …

The Effects Of Individual And Group Incentives On High Performance, Heather M. Mcgee

Dissertations

The present study examined the performance levels of high performers under equally-divided group monetary incentives, individual monetary incentives, and hourly pay to determine: (a) whether the performance levels of high performers would be higher under individual and group incentive pay systems than under an hourly pay system, (b) whether the performance of high performers would be lower under group incentives than under individual incentives, and (c) whether changes in performance would be due to comparative feedback indicating that the participant is a high performer. Participants were eleven college students who performed a computerized work task that simulated the job of …

The Effects Of On-The-Spot Observations In A Behavioral Safety Application, Sigurdur Oli Sigurdsson

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a package intervention on critical safety behaviors and conditions in a food and drinking industry setting. The intervention involved training a sub sample of employees to conduct safety observations, providing all employees with safety information, and posting weekly graphic safety feedback on six safety-related variables based on employee observations. A multiple baseline design across departments was used to assess the effects of the interventions in two dining services kitchens on the campus of a midwestem university. Overall, the intervention implemented in this study had mixed effects on safety behavior, …

Taiwanese Female Counselors’ Experiences Of Managing Work And Family Roles And Responsibilities, Joy Yuyin Huang

Dissertations

Mental health professionals work in emotionally demanding environments when they work with clients who have emotional problems and interpersonal conflicts. Self-care and managing family and work responsibilities are concerns of great importance for mental health professionals to maintain quality in their services. This is of special concern for Asian female counselors who play important supportive roles for their families. As a result, Asian female counselorsnot only work with clients but also assume heavy family responsibilities, yet there is a dearth of literature on this specific group (Leong, 2002; Saso, 1999; Lee, 1998).

This qualitative study using grounded theory methods explored …

Monitoring The Effects Of Psychotropic Drugs In Students With Emotional Impairments: Home And School Data, Lynne E. Turner

Dissertations

Research has shown that schools do not typically participate in the systematic monitoring of psychotropic medications prescribed to school-aged children with emotional disorders. Conversely, research indicates that the information that is relayed to the prescribing physician from the schools consists, in general, of informal global reports regarding the student's overall behavior. Additionally, research evaluating systematic monitoring systems within schools has lacked input from the prescribing physician regarding relevant data to be collected. These findings provided impetus for the present project, which was an attempt to develop a practical system for schools to monitor possible desired and adverse effects of psychotropic …

Nutrition Education For Persons With Disabilities, Jada A. Miller

Masters Theses

This study provides descriptive information about the dietary knowledge and intake of community-based young adults who have been diagnosed with a number of disabilities. A nutrition education curriculum was implemented for the Experimental group (N=9) and at a later date for the Delayed Intervention group (N=9). Results indicated that the three-week nutrition education curriculum produced moderate improvement in participants' nutritional knowledge and moderate improvement in nutritional value of foods chosen from a menu. However, the intervention proved to have a negligible effect on the nutritional value of foods consumed within this population of individuals.

Based on the results of this …

Superimposition And Withdrawal Of Tangible Consequences As A Treatment For Automatically Reinforced Problem Behaviors, Tina M. Sidener

Masters Theses

Tangible superimposition and withdrawal is a reductive procedure in which a new stimulus is delivered following behavior already maintained by a different controlling stimulus. The new stimulus is then removed in an attempt to reduce behavior. The current investigation sought to extend previous research on this procedure by evaluating its efficacy and durability as a treatment for stereotypy in three children diagnosed with autism. First, automatic reinforcement functions for stereotypic behaviors were identified via functional analyses. Next, for two participants, tangible items were delivered contingent upon stereotypy and then subsequently withdrawn. When the superimposition procedure proved ineffective, environmental enrichment was …

Controversial Maternal Roles Of Intrafamilial Child Sexual Abuse Cases, Rhonda Elliott Mcgee

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine Child Sexual Abuse case files, to determine which "maternal role": (a) protector, (b) co-victim, (c) co-perpetrator/conspirator, or (d) perpetrator was the most common in court cases studied in this research. The researcher also sought to find: (1) The most dominant maternal role in reference to percentage; (2) The effect, if any, of certain "role types"; (3) And the consequences and/or effects of selected variables (e.g. age, race, and gender) had in family court decisions and adjudications.

The target population consisted of forty-one cases of Child Sexual Abuse cases, adjudicated by the Family …

Aiding At-Risk Students, Jeremy Baldwin

Honors Theses

Kalamazoo's Loy Norrix High School was the location of a study in conjunction with the institution's school-wide achievement process to aid at-risk students. Characterized by poor attendance, behavioral problems and/or failing two or more subjects, at-risk students are monitored more closely through school-wide efforts. According to the Michigan Department of Education, the effort to hep struggling students implicates the use of supplemental services before or after school to help students in the core subjects: math, science, social studies, and English. Norrix has successfully begun its own efforts to improve the overall academic success of the student body by employing the …

Working With Heterosexual Allies On Campus: A Qualitative Exploration Of Experiences Among Lgbt Campus Resource Center Directors, Melissa A. Bullard

Dissertations

The scholarly literature has just recently begun to address the role that heterosexual allies can play in responding to the unique needs and challenges facing LGBT people. As Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Campus Resource Centers are expanding in number and scope on college and university campuses across the United States, heterosexual allies have increased opportunities to support and advocate for LGBT people. Yet very little is known about what heterosexual allies do, or how their presence and actions impact LGBT people. The purpose of this study is to identify and describe the experiences that LGBT individuals have with …

Academic Performance, Persistence, And Cultural Congruence Of African American Males Attending Predominantly White Colleges And Universities, Darrell Johnson

Dissertations

The continued lack of success for African American males attending predominantly White colleges and universities is alarming and unsettling. Other racial minority groups are making positive gains relative to their post-secondary educational experiences. However, the African American male lags behind in virtually every index of success in higher education. This trend could produce serious social, economic and cultural implications for the African American community and the entire country.

For African Americans, a strong sense of culture is important to their ability to achieve high levels of mental and psychological functioning, particularly in environments they perceive to be hostile or unwelcoming. …

Continuous And Interrupted Exposure Therapy In The Treatment Of Public Speaking Anxiety, Stacey A. Waller

Dissertations

Current research suggests that exposure-based interventions are the treatment of choice for anxiety disorders (Barlow & Wolfe, 1981; Barlow, 1988; 2002; Zinbarg, Barlow, Brown, & Hertz, 1992; Foa, Rothbaum, & Kozak, 1989). While the evidence to date supports the efficacy of these procedures, the precise mechanisms by which they achieve symptom reduction are not yet fully understood. Most theoretical explanations of exposure therapy appeal to the respondent and operant conditioning processes from which the procedure was originally derived. While it is frequently argued that in order to achieve operant and respondent extinction, exposure must be delivered continuously, without interruption (Barlow, …

Exploring The Behavioral Function Of Work Monitoring, Don H. Rohn

Dissertations

A number of studies have suggested the key difference between effective and ineffective managers is the extent to which managers engage in a particular form of monitoring - work sampling (Komaki & Minnich, 2002). Effective managers observe employees instead of relying on self-reports or secondary sources of performance. A factor contributing to the effectiveness of work sampling may be an increase in desired behavior as a function of reactivity to the presence of an observer. In spite of the large volume of research on the effects of observer presence on various physiological responses and task performances (Guerin, 1993), a study …

Comparative And Contributive Effects Of Process And Human Performance Improvement Strategies, Joseph R. Sasson

Dissertations

Organizational leaders know that the success of their organization depends on the organization's ability to either produce better products or produce equally good products at a lower cost to consumers. Interventions aimed at improving organizational performance stem from two primary perspectives. One perspective emphasizes changing system factors (e.g., equipment and processes) and the other perspective emphasizes changing human performance factors (e.g., performance specifications and behavioral consequences). The current study evaluated the comparative and contributive effects of process improvement techniques (Kock, 1999; Melan, 1992; Rummler & Brache, 1995) and human performance improvement techniques (Daniels, 1989; Gilbert, 1996; Rummler & Brache, 1995), …