An Analysis of Classroom Contextual Factors on the Behaviors of Students with Autism

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An Analysis of Classroom Contextual Factors on
the Behaviors of Students with Autism

• Maureen A. Conroy, Jennifer M. Asmus,
• Crystal N. Ladwig, Brian A. Boyd
• University of Florida
• Presented at the CRIEI Conference
• San Diego, CA
• February 2004
• Supported by U.S. Department of Education
• Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative
  Services (H32D324D020023)

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Research Questions

• Examine the effects of contextual factors on
• Rate duration of target child social behaviors
• Sequential relationship between target child and
  peer social behaviors

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Participants

• Total N 18 children (ages 2 - 5 years old)
• Diagnosis Autism/ASD
• Included in natural environments
• All children demonstrate social deficits /or
  social problem behaviors

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Settings

• Conducted in natural settings including general
  education classrooms, preschool, and childcare
  settings
• Approximately 7 - 20 children per classroom
• Certified classroom teacher or early childhood
  professional in each classroom

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Pilot Participant

• Gary
• 5 years old
• Asperger syndrome
• Communication skills - Speaks in 3 - 4 word
  sentences
• Academic delay in math
• Significant social deficit
• Setting
• Kindergarten classroom
• 19 students
• Certified teacher and full-time teaching assistant

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Observation Procedures

• Data collected across 9 activities via
  videotapes (approximately 20 - 30 min/activity)
• Continuous, sequential recording system of social
  behaviors and contextual factors using PROCODER
  (Tapp, 2003) HP Pavillion Computer
• Data analysis using MOOSES (Tapp, 2003)
• Data collected for 9 - 10 hours across 12 weeks

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Contextual Factors

• Activities
• Manipulatives/blocks
• Cognitive/Books/Preacademics
• Art/Sensory
• Pretend/sociodramatic play
• Dance/music
• Snack/meal time
• Computer
• Transition
• Games with rules

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Contextual Factors - continued

• Target child behaviors
• Unoccupied
• Stereotypy/self injury
• Inappropriate behavior
• Engagement
• Manipulative
• Cognitive/books/preacademic
• Art/sensory
• Pretend/sociodramatic
• Dance/music
• Snack/mealtime
• Computer
• Games with rules

9
Contextual Factors - continued

• Peer Group Size
• Small (2-5)
• Large (over 5)
• 11
• No peer group
• Play Format
• Adult directed
• Child directed
• Adult Engagement
• Active
• Passive
• Disengaged

10
Contextual Factors - continued

• Perceived Terminal Outcomes
• Escape social situations
• Escape from social to stereotypy
• Obtain peer attention
• Obtain adult attention
• Obtain tangible reinforcer
• Obtain tangible escape social situation
• No outcome

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Dependent Measures

• Child Behaviors
• Initiations
• Helping/affection/comfort
• Requests
• Play organizer
• Negative initiation
• Initiated, but cant tell
• Responses
• Active responses
• Appropriate refusal
• Passive responses
• Negative refusal
• No response/continued current activity
• Responded, but cant tell

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Dependent Measures - continued

• Child behaviors
• Interactions
• Positive
• Negative
• Adult behavior
• General prompt
• Specific prompt
• Comments/praise
• Reprimand
• Removal of tangible
• Other

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Interobserver Agreement

• IOA calculated using (A/A D) x 100
• IOA calculated on 29
• Contextual Factors (Occurrence and nonoccurrence)
• Mean 99 (range 99 - 100)
• Social Interaction Behaviors (Occurrence only)
• Mean 85 (range 76 - 100)

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Data Analysis

• Rate/duration of target child social behaviors
  were calculated across each contextual factor
• Lag sequential analyses to examine the
  relationship between target child and peer social
  behaviors was conducted across contextual factors
• Conditional probability scores were calculated to
  compare the strength direction of relationships
  in presence of contextual factors

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Data Analysis

• Probability Analyses
• Indexes for determining the strength of the
  relationship
• .0 - .3 mild relationship
• .3 - .6 moderate relationship
• .6 - 1.0 strong relationship

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Descriptive Data on Social Behaviors
Maureen Conroy Looking at the data under
question 9 - it looks like this is the total
duration of interaction, but then it appears that
interactions occurred longer in different
contextual factors?

• Target Child Initiations .02/min
• Target Child Responses .15/min
• Interactions 397 seconds (?)
• Peer initiations -gt Target child responses
• Target child initiations -gt Peer responses

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What are the effects of various activities on
rate, duration, sequence of social behaviors?
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Rate duration of social behaviors?
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Sequence of target child peer social behaviors
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What are the effects of peer group size on rate,
duration, sequence of social behaviors?
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Rate duration of social behaviors?
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Sequence of target child peer social behaviors?
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What are the effects of play format on the rate,
duration, sequence of social behaviors?
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Rate duration of social behaviors?
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Sequence of target child peer social behaviors?
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What are the effects of adult engagement on rate,
duration, sequence of social behaviors?
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Rate duration of social behaviors?
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Sequence of target child peer social behaviors?
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What are the outcomes of social behaviors?
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Social behavior outcomes?
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What behaviors is target child engaged in when
not social interacting?
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Target Child Behaviors
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Limitations

• Pilot data presented (N1)
• Low rate of behaviors
• Difficulties interpreting sequential
  relationships
• Uncontrolled base rate of antecedent and target
  behaviors
• Conditional probability index has limitations
  (Yoder Feuer, 2000)

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Conclusions, Implications, Future Research
Directions

• Overall rate/duration of target child social
  behaviors is extremely low
• However, context appears to effect rate/duration
  of those behaviors
• Activities
• Higher rate of initiations
• Art, computer, games with rules
• Higher rate of rate of responses
• Manipulatives, computer, transitions, games with
  rules
• Interactions occurred in
• Cognitive, art, games with rules

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Context and Rate/Duration of Social Behaviors

• Group size
• Higher rate of initiations
• Small group
• Higher rate of responses
• Small group 11
• Interactions occurred
• Small group 11
• Play Format
• No difference in initiations between adult
  child directed
• Higher rate of responses
• Child directed
• Longer duration of interactions in child directed

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Context and Rate/Duration of Social Behaviors

• Adult engagement
• Higher rate of responses when teacher was
  disengaged
• Longer duration of interactions when teacher was
  passively engaged

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Context Sequence of Behaviors

• Overall probability of peer initiations and
  target child responses were low
• Overall probability of target child initiations
  and peer responses were low

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Context Sequence of Behaviors

• Activity Context
• Activity context did not appear to influence the
  strength of the relationship between peer
  initiations target child responses
• Target child initiations and peer responses were
  more likely to occur in art, computer, games
  with rules in comparison to other activities

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Context Sequence of Behaviors

• Group size
• Peer initiations target child responses more
  likely to occur in small group I1
• Target child initiations peer responses more
  likely to occur in small group no peer setting

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Context Sequence of Behaviors

• No difference between adult vs. child directed
  formats for peer initiations target child
  responses or target child responses and peer
  initiations

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Context Sequence of Behaviors

• No difference between types of adult engagement
  and peer initiations target child responses
• Target child initiations peer responses are
  more likely to occur then the adult is active or
  disengaged

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Social Outcomes

• Obtaining peer attention tangibles are the most
  likely outcomes of social behaviors

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Implications Further Research

• Context plays an important role in the rate and
  duration of social behaviors for this particular
  participant
• Replication needs to occur for generalizability
  of findings
• Sequential analyses should be viewed with caution