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INCREASING SPONTANEOUS PLAY BY SUPPRESSING SELF‐STIMULATION IN AUTISTIC CHILDREN 1
Author(s) -
Koegel Robert L.,
Firestone Paula B.,
Kramme Kenneth W.,
Dunlap Glen
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
journal of applied behavior analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1938-3703
pISSN - 0021-8855
DOI - 10.1901/jaba.1974.7-521
Subject(s) - psychology , stimulation , developmental psychology , set (abstract data type) , multiple baseline design , autism , clinical psychology , audiology , neuroscience , psychiatry , medicine , intervention (counseling) , computer science , programming language
Appropriate play with toys was studied in two autistic children with high occurrences of self‐stimulatory behavior. Each child participated in the experimental sessions in an A‐B‐A design, where “A” refers to baseline sessions and “B” refers to self‐stimulation suppression sessions. It was found that: (a) during the baseline sessions, the children exhibited low levels of play and high levels of self‐stimulatory behavior; (b) the per cent of unreinforced, spontaneous, appropriate play increased when self‐stimulatory behavior was suppressed; and (c) when the suppression of self‐stimulation was discontinued, the per cent of self‐stimulation and that of appropriate play approached their presuppression levels. These results seem particularly significant because they identify a set of conditions under which spontaneous appropriate behavior, uncommon in autistic children, occurs at an increased level.