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open access

It's Going to be Different, but It's Going to be Okay: Caregiver Perspectives on Autism, Culture and Accessing Care

Description: Through ethnography influenced by public health and anthropological theory, I explored the cultural perceptions of autism among eight caregivers whose children received services from a local Dallas-Fort Worth autism treatment organization. Participant observations and semi-structured interviews with caregivers and program employees provided a rich and nuanced view into the state of care currently available in the DFW area while also highlighting areas for improvement. This research will be used… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Otwori, Beverly N.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Effects of the Density of Reinforcement on the Maladaptive Behaviors of a Child With Autism

Description: The present study consists of two experiments that analyze the effects of high and low densities of reinforcemnt on the maladaptive behaviors of a 9 year old girl with autism. The first experiment investigates the isolated effects of density of reinforcement on the frequency of maladaptive behaviors during a motor imitation teaching task. High densities of reinforcement produced fewer occurrences of maladaptive behavior than low densities of reinforcement. Experiment 2 analyzes the effects of d… more
Date: December 2000
Creator: Motiejunas, Kristina M.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Integration of Students with Disabilities into a Contemporary Technology Education Program: a Case Study

Description: The impacts resulting from the integration of students with moderate-to-severe disabilities into a contemporary technology education program are described in this study. The research centered around questions that addressed impacts on students with disabilities, on regular students, on teachers, and on parents of students with disabilities. The study took place in a ninth-grade technology education class and involved two students with moderate-to-severe disabilities. One subject was a 15-year-o… more
Date: December 1992
Creator: Pullias, David T. (David Terrell)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Assessing Maternal Functioning in Families of Children with Autism

Description: Mothers and siblings of children with autism incur stressors that impact their well-being more adversely than mothers of children with ADHD or normally developing children. In Study 1, twenty-six mothers of children with autism (Group 1) were compared to 24 mothers of children with ADHD (Group 2) and 24 mothers with normally developing children (Group 3). All families included a normally developing child (ages 4 to 12). Measures to delineate levels of maternal functioning were administered. Re… more
Date: August 1996
Creator: Oizumi, Joelle J. (Joelle Julienne)
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Investigating the effects on parallel play between siblings: Teaching children with autism to emit social phrases to their typically developing sibling.

Description: The focus of this study was three fold. First, modeling and feedback were investigated as a training package for social interactions between siblings. Second, the effects of social phrases taught to the sibling with autism were investigated. Third, the magnitude of these social phrases was measured by timing duration of parallel play. The experimental design is an A-B-A1-A2 design conducted in a clinic, with a probe for generalization in the home environment. This intervention was replicated… more
Date: December 2008
Creator: Hille, Katrina J.
Partner: UNT Libraries

See Sam Run: a Mother's Story of Autism

Description: Thousands of children are diagnosed with autism each year, with a rate of occurrence of 1 in 150 births, compared to 5 per 10,000 just two decades ago. This astounding escalation has professionals scrambling to explain why the devastating neurological disorder, which profoundly affects a person’s language and social development, is on the rise. Are we simply getting better at diagnosing autism, or is a modern health crisis unfolding before us?
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: May 15, 2008
Creator: Heinkel-Wolfe, Peggy
Partner: UNT Press
open access

A Training Program to Facilitate Caregiver Involvement in School Meetings

Description: Caregivers of children with autism will likely meet with many school professionals once their children become school-aged. These meetings can be intimidating for caregivers who are unfamiliar with special education terminology and protocol, and caregivers may feel ineffective when communicating with school personnel. The purpose of this study is to describe a training curriculum to teach caregivers ways in which to communicate during meetings with school professionals, including the kinds of qu… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Barahona, Heather
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Follow-Up Study of Autistic and Autistic-Like Children

Description: Autism is a lifelong handicapping disorder that occurs on a continuum of severity. Children who show mild autistic behaviors but do not meet the criteria for a diagnosis of autism are often called autistic-like, but it is not known if their development and functioning are similar to that of autistic children. A follow-up study was done on 35 autistic and autistic-like children who were an average of 3 years of age when initially seen. Initial test scores indicated that the children were similar… more
Date: August 1988
Creator: McCallon, Denise
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Analysis of Critical Skills Used By Educators of Students With Autism

Description: A review of the literature indicated that critical skills needed by educators of students with autism had not been sufficiently identified. Research efforts using survey instruments appeared to offer a method for gathering data in order to develop and analyze a comprehensive list of critical skills for educators of students with autism. A survey instrument was developed in bifurcate format that required respondents to rate 118 skill items according to Importance and Proficiency. Two Likert-type… more
Date: August 1989
Creator: Bunsen, Teresa Dawn
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Measurement System for Monitoring Play in Typically Developing Children and Children with Autism

Description: A comprehensive measurement system was developed to monitor play in children with autism and typically developing children. The study was conducted in a preschool operated in conjunction with a center-based program for children with autism. The development of the measurement system was based on observations of four children with autism and three typically developing children during social and play activites. Data were collected on material use and several dimensions of play: Simple Manipulation… more
Date: May 2002
Creator: Gudmundsdottir, Kristin
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Siblings of Autistic Children: a Supportive Intervention Program Assessing Self-Report and Parent Measures of Coping

Description: This research project was designed to demonstrate the usefulness of a supportive intervention program for 17 nine to 14 year old siblings of autistic children. Current clinical practice has begun most recently to include the siblings of handicapped children in treatment services as a preventive measure to help maximize families' coping abilities and to increase the chances that they will be strengthened by their unique circumstances. Although research evidence suggests that most siblings are no… more
Date: December 1987
Creator: Pope, Judith Auricchio
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Effects of Priming and Contingent Attention on Novel Play Episodes in a Child with Autism

Description: This study evaluated the effects of priming and contingent attention procedures on play variability in a child with autism. During baseline, numbers of novel play episodes, different play episodes, and actions occurred at low rates. Priming procedures did not produce desired change. When contingent attention was implemented, significant increases occurred in novel play episodes, different actions, and different play episodes. These results show that attention contingent on variable play episode… more
Date: August 2002
Creator: Josendale, Julianne R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Effects of a Feedback Package on the Facial Orientation of a Young Girl with Autism During Restricted and Free Operant Conditions

Description: A multiple baseline design across activities and people was used to assess the effectiveness of a feedback package on the facial orientation of a young girl with autism. During baseline, observations indicated low rates of facial orientation and high rates of gaze avoidance during conversation (restricted operant) and play (free operant) conditions. After treatment, facial orientation rates increased and gaze avoidance rates decreased to levels similar to typically-developing peers and maintain… more
Date: August 2000
Creator: Jacobs, Wendy Lynn
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Effects of Interspersed Trials and Density of Reinforcement on Accuracy, Looking Away, and Self-Injurious Behavior of a Child with Autism

Description: This research examines the effects of task interspersal and density of reinforcement on several behaviors of an autistic 6-year-old boy during the performance of a visual matching task and two auditory matching tasks. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of interspersing high and low accuracy tasks on correct matching responses, positions of matching responses, looking away, and self-injurious behavior (SIB). The effects of interspersed trials were evaluated using an ABAB multiple treatments d… more
Date: May 2000
Creator: Ybarra, Rita
Partner: UNT Libraries

Maintaining behavior in a child with autism using a previously neutral stimulus, a remote control tactile stimulus, as the consequence

Description: Few studies have investigated methods for establishing neutral stimuli as conditioned reinforcers in human subjects. Conditioned reinforcers, however, can alleviate some of the problems encountered in applied behavior analytic (ABA) therapy for children with autism, such as satiation and suitability of reinforcers for specific environments. A series of reversals evaluated the effects of a conditioning procedure involving pairing a neutral stimulus, the remote control stimulus (RCT), with an ide… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: August 2000
Creator: Wheat, Leigh Ann Stiles
Partner: UNT Libraries
captions transcript

[News Clip: Autism]

Description: Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.
Date: June 27, 1978, 5:00 p.m.
Duration: 2 minutes 06 seconds
Creator: KXAS-TV (Television station : Fort Worth, Tex.)
Partner: UNT Libraries Special Collections
open access

Social Skills Training with Verbal Autistic Adolescents: A Case Study Approach

Description: Autistic adolescents need direct, systematic training of social skills since major difficulties in communication, lack of empathy, and various changes during adolescence present major roadblocks to the acquisition of normal peer relationships and increasing independence. A case study approach was utilized to examine treatment effects of a social skills training program implemented with four autistic adolescent boys in a naturalistic setting. Findings based on objective measures and subjective r… more
Date: August 1988
Creator: Nichols, Jill Howard
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Social Skills Training with High-Functioning Autistic Adolescents

Description: Social skills training is a need among autistic adolescents. This investigation examined a social skills training program involving several teaching strategies. Specific social skills were targeted for improvement. Attempts to decrease negative social behaviors were made. Five autistic adolescents participated in the program and five were selected for the no-treatment group. Two measures were used. A survey addressing the skills targeted in the program was completed by parents and teachers be… more
Date: August 1988
Creator: Eversole, Amy
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Further Evaluation of Blocked Trials to Teach Intraverbal Conditional Discriminations: Effects of Criterion-level Probes

Description: Individuals with autism often have deficient intraverbal repertoires. Previous research has found success in using a blocked trials procedure to facilitate discrimination training. A previous study (unpublished) from our laboratory extended this procedure to intraverbal training. The current study continued this line of research by exploring the outcomes of probing the criterion performance more frequently. Three children with autism, ages 7-13, participated. Eight question pairs were taught. … more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Haggar, Jennifer Lynn
Partner: UNT Libraries
captions transcript

[News Clip: Autism]

Description: Video footage from the KXAS-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, to accompany a news story.
Date: April 22, 1982, 5:00 p.m.
Duration: 2 minutes 02 seconds
Creator: KXAS-TV (Television station : Fort Worth, Tex.)
Partner: UNT Libraries Special Collections
open access

A systematic replication of the Family Connections parent-toddler training program.

Description: As more toddlers are being diagnosed with autism there is an increased need for very early intervention. Preliminary research on interventions suggests toddlers can make important developmental progress and that parents can be part of the intervention process. The purpose of this study was to systematically replicate a parent training program reported by Alai-Rosales et al. (2009). Specifically, the present study taught parents a set of teaching strategies that included arranging the environ… more
Date: May 2009
Creator: Newcomer, Andrea L.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Can Analyzing Infant Imitation in the Natural Environment Inform Interventions in Autism?

Description: A longitudinal study of infants and their mothers was conducted to explore the development of imitation and approximations to imitation. During a 10-minute unstructured play session, researchers observed two mother-infant dyads once per week for twelve weeks, while they played at home. The data presented represents infants between the ages 5 and 34 weeks. The methodology employed was based on the methods described by Hart and Rilsey (1999). Observations were coded based on the topography of the… more
Date: May 2009
Creator: Waltenburg, Carley
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Using a Behavioral Treatment Package to Teach Tolerance to Skin Care Products to a Child with Autism: A Systematic Replication

Description: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of a treatment package to teach a child with autism to willingly accept skin care products conducive to health and normal everyday living. The current study uses graduated exposure, modeling and contingent social attention to teach the child to accept the application of skin care products previously avoided. Results of the study showed that the participant tolerated criterion amounts of all target stimuli with both experimenter and … more
Date: May 2009
Creator: Vidosevic, Tania A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Parent Partnership: Towards a Constructional Approach to Improving the Life of Parents with Children with Autism

Description: Parents with children diagnosed with autism face a variety of stressors. The typical approach to dealing with these stressors is pathological which focuses on the problem by attempting to eliminate or alleviate the stressors through counseling, behavioral therapy, tutoring, and/or drugs. The purpose of the current study was to assess an alternative approach, a constructional one, which focuses on solutions by teaching 3 parents to analyze their life, formulate goals, and develop programs to re… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Liden, Timothy Allen
Partner: UNT Libraries
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