Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Further Comparison Of Preference For Intervention With And Without Restricted Topics, Meg Patel

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shown that individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may dwell on restricted topics of interest during conversations (Mercier et al., 2000; Smerbeck, 2019). Stocco et al. (in press) found that individuals may prefer a conversational-skill intervention that includes access to restricted topics over an intervention that only provides high-quality attention for speech about experimenter-led topics. We replicated and extended Stocco et al. in two ways. First, we evaluated if speech about restricted topics (a) occurred at high levels and (b) was sensitive to interested responses from a listener. Second, we experimentally evaluated the additive effects of …