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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2020

University of the Pacific

Behavioral sciences

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Listener Responses Can Influence The Presentation Of Restricted Interest Topics To Individuals With Asd, Sadaf Fakharzadeh Jan 2020

Listener Responses Can Influence The Presentation Of Restricted Interest Topics To Individuals With Asd, Sadaf Fakharzadeh

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The behavior of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can influence caregiver responses that lead to countertherapeutic outcomes. However, there are few experimental evaluations of variables that can cause potentially undesirable interactions between those with ASD and their caregivers. Specifically, little is known about the effects of listener interest on the restricted topics presented by caregivers. We evaluated the influence of listener responses exhibited by a confederate acting as a person with ASD on the topics presented by three undergraduate students who were interested in working with individuals diagnosed with ASD. Each session consisted of a 5-min conversation, during …


Further Comparison Of Preference For Intervention With And Without Restricted Topics, Meg Patel Jan 2020

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 …