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Full-Text Articles in Psychology
Misuse Of Social Behavior In Down Syndrome: Caregiver Conducted Functional Analysis, Sally M. Izquierdo
Misuse Of Social Behavior In Down Syndrome: Caregiver Conducted Functional Analysis, Sally M. Izquierdo
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Young children with Down syndrome often engage in charming non-contextual social behaviors. The developmental literature suggests that non-contextual social behaviors may function to escape from difficult activities to preferred social interactions. Caregivers may reinforce the behavior, perceiving it as evidence of the child’s social strength, when in fact, the pattern of behavior may also contribute to missed learning opportunities and a developmental gap between children with Down syndrome and their typically developing peers. We investigated the pattern by subjecting it for the first time to functional analyses. We identified non-contextual social behavior, confirmed function(s) of escape to attention, and compared …
A Behavior Analytic Intervention To Teach Exploratory Motor Behavior To Infants With Down Syndrome, Sara M. Bauer
A Behavior Analytic Intervention To Teach Exploratory Motor Behavior To Infants With Down Syndrome, Sara M. Bauer
Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects
Exploratory Motor (EM) behavior refers to manipulating a toy in the hand(s). Infants with Down syndrome demonstrate significant impairments in the duration and frequency of EM behavior compared to their typically developing counterparts. A behavior analytic intervention involving multiple opportunities, prompting, and social reinforcement was used to teach three infants with Down syndrome between 4-9 months of age to emit EM behavior. Results indicate that all three infants with Down syndrome emitted the three EM target behaviors to mastery and demonstrated generalized responding across stimuli and other EM behaviors. The importance of these findings in addressing impairments in infants with …