Psychology Commons^™

Stimulus Pairing To Condition Novel Reinforcers For Bermudian Participants With Autism, Jahnae Harvey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Reinforcement is crucial to an individual’s quality of life and acquisition/maintenance of novel skills, but a limited bank of reinforcers could lead to a reduction in engagement with pre-established reinforcers, reducing the motivational strength to contrive teaching opportunities, and increase maladaptive behaviors, self-stimulatory behaviors, or idle time. Though the stimulus-stimulus paring (SSP) method has been effective in establishing novel reinforcers for individuals who are diagnosed with autism, there is a gap in the literature on cross-cultural variations seen among responses when using SSP. This study was conducted to determine the generalizability of the effect when using the method of SSP …