Date of Graduation

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Regina A Carroll

Committee Co-Chair

Amy Herschell

Committee Member

Michael Perone

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that delivering controlling prompts and reinforcers with low-levels of treatment integrity may interfere with the acquisition of skills during discrete-trial instruction. However, implementing certain components of discrete-trial instruction with varying levels of low integrity may influence skill acquisition differently. In Experiment 1, we evaluated the effects of delivering a prompt following participants' incorrect responses with 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% integrity on skill acquisition with two children with autism spectrum disorder. In Experiment 2, we evaluated the effects of delivering a reinforcer following participants' correct responses with 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% integrity on skill acquisition with the same two children from Experiment 1. Participants acquired the target skills taught in the high-integrity condition and in the low-integrity conditions in both experiments. The results of the current study suggest that implementing components of discrete-trial instruction with low levels of integrity may not interfere with skill acquisition for these two participants. These results are partially inconsistent with previous research. Future research should continue to investigate the effects of implementing various components of discrete-trial instruction with low treatment integrity with children with autism spectrum disorder.

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