Biomedical subjects

Bob Remington

Publications and source records attributed to Bob Remington.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2007

DTkid: interactive simulation software for training tutors of children with autism.

Discrete-trial training (DTT) relies critically on implementation by trained tutors. We report three experiments carried out in the development of "DTkid"--interactive computer simulation software that presents "SIMon", a realistic virtual child with whom novice tutors can learn and practise DTT techniques. Experiments 1 and 2 exposed groups of participants either to DTkid training or to a control task. Participants in the former groups demonstrated significantly greater procedural and declarative knowledge of DTT. Experiment 3 confirmed this finding, further demonstrating that observation of DTkid training trials alone was sufficient to enhance participants' declarative and procedural knowledge of DTT. Results indicate that DTkid offers the potential for an effective means of teaching DTT skills to novice tutors of children with autism.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Equivalence relations, contextual control, and naming.

This paper reports two experiments that investigated the role of verbal behavior in the emergence and generalization of contextually controlled equivalence classes. During both experiments, participants were trained with two different combinations of the same easily nameable, yet formally unrelated, pictorial stimuli. Match-to-sample baselines for eight four-member classes were established under the contextual control of two colors. In the presence of one color, conditional relations were established between stimuli whose normative names rhymed. In the presence of the other color, conditional relations were established between stimuli whose normative names did not rhyme. Although, during Experiment 1, all participants demonstrated equivalence classes involving rhyming stimuli, none demonstrated the formation of nonrhyme equivalence classes. To investigate this finding, Experiment 2 evaluated whether participants would demonstrate both rhyme and nonrhyme equivalence classes given more extensive exposure to the experimental contingencies. All participants demonstrated contextually controlled rhyme and nonrhyme equivalence classes, although rhyme classes were demonstrated with greater facility than nonrhyme classes. Results indicate that visual stimuli are named, that verbal bases for stimulus classification can affect the emergence of contextually controlled equivalence classes, and that untrained contextually controlled conditional discriminations involving novel stimuli can emerge on the basis of participants' verbal behavior.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Early intensive behavioral intervention for children with autism: therapists' perspectives on achieving procedural fidelity.

The variability in outcomes observed in home-based early intensive behavioral intervention for children with autism is likely in part to be the result of the quality of therapist performance. Therapist behavior in this context, however, is poorly understood. To achieve such an understanding, it will be necessary to specify how factors such as therapist, child and intervention program characteristics, as well as supervision and training provision, influence therapists' interactions with children. This study identified facilitating factors and barriers that therapists considered to influence their capacity to deliver early intensive behavioral intervention to young children with autism. Nineteen therapists associated with various service providers in the South of England were interviewed. In general, responses represented opposite poles of the same construct. For example, child factors such as compliance and competence were considered to facilitate instruction, whereas challenging behavior and lack of progress were perceived to hinder it. These issues are considered in the light of previous research on staff behavior in related contexts. The factors identified suggest specific avenues for questionnaire and experimental research to validate these findings, have implications for routine service provision and may help improve the outcomes of children receiving early intensive behavioral intervention.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Systems analysis of stress and positive perceptions in mothers and fathers of pre-school children with autism.

Systemic analyses of psychological functioning in families of children with autism have typically shown that parents report different experiences (e.g., stress) and that siblings may also be affected. The purpose of the present research was more explicitly to address relationships between child, partner, and parent variables. Parents of 48 children with autism (41 mother-father pairs) reported on child characteristics, and their own stress and mental health. Mothers were found to report both more depression and more positive perceptions than fathers. Regression analyses revealed that paternal stress and positive perceptions were predicted by maternal depression; maternal stress was predicted by their children's behavior problems (not adaptive behavior or autism symptoms) and by their partner's depression. The future testing of the mechanisms underlying these results is discussed. In addition, the need is emphasized for more systemic analyses to understand the psychological functioning of children with autism and their siblings and parents.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Teaching children with autism when reward is delayed. The effects of two kinds of marking stimuli.

Three children with autism were taught to identify pictures of emotions in response to their spoken names. Their speed of acquisition was compared using a within-child alternating treatments design across three teaching conditions, each involving a 5 second delay to reinforcement. In the marked-before condition, an instruction encouraged the children to visually orient to the cards before they made their choice response; in the marked-after condition, an attention-eliciting verbal cue (e.g., "Look!") was delivered after both correct and incorrect responses; in the delay condition, these marking cues were omitted. Performance in the no-cue control was inferior to both the marked-before and marked-after conditions, but the difference between the latter two conditions was not significant.

Association Learning↗

PubMed2005

Coping strategies in mothers and fathers of preschool and school-age children with autism.

Despite the theoretical and demonstrated empirical significance of parental coping strategies for the wellbeing of families of children with disabilities, relatively little research has focused explicitly on coping in mothers and fathers of children with autism. In the present study, 89 parents of preschool children and 46 parents of school-age children completed a measure of the strategies they used to cope with the stresses of raising their child with autism. Factor analysis revealed four reliable coping dimensions: active avoidance coping, problem-focused coping, positive coping, and religious/denial coping. Further data analysis suggested gender differences on the first two of these dimensions but no reliable evidence that parental coping varied with the age of the child with autism. Associations were also found between coping strategies and parental stress and mental health. Practical implications are considered including reducing reliance on avoidance coping and increasing the use of positive coping strategies.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2004

Dissociation of wanting and liking for alcohol in humans: a test of the incentive-sensitisation theory.

RATIONALE: Incentive sensitisation theory (IST) claims that the mechanism of reward is comprised of separate neurobiological systems of wanting and liking, that dependent drug use occurs as a result of sensitisation of the system controlling wanting, and that the two systems can be dissociated. OBJECTIVE: To test the IST prediction that wanting and liking for alcohol can be dissociated in humans. METHODS: Measures of wanting and liking for alcohol were obtained in three experiments. Experiment 1 examined whether liking for alcohol was associated with levels of wanting, as indexed by self-reported weekly alcohol intake. Experiments 2 and 3 also assessed the association between liking and wanting but in these experiments wanting was also indexed by alcohol consumption in the laboratory. Experiment 2 increased wanting for alcohol using an alcohol priming dose to determine whether liking would be similarly affected. Experiment 3 reduced liking for alcohol by adulterating drinks with Tween to see whether wanting would also be reduced. RESULTS: Little evidence for an association between liking and wanting for alcohol was found in Experiments 1-3 but, collapsing across all experiments, a weak positive correlation between liking and wanting was found. However, in Experiment 2, wanting was increased by the alcohol priming dose whereas liking was not and in Experiment 3 liking was reduced without a concurrent reduction in wanting. CONCLUSIONS: Although correlations between wanting and liking can be observed these results support the contention of the IST that wanting and liking for alcohol can be dissociated in human participants.

Adaptation, Physiological↗

PubMed2004

Inhibitory deficits, delay aversion and preschool AD/HD: implications for the dual pathway model.

The dual pathway model proposes the existence of separate and neurobiologically distinct cognitive (inhibitory and more general executive dysfunction) and motivational (delay aversion) developmental routes to AD/HD. The study reported in this paper explores the relation between inhibitory deficits and delay aversion and their association with AD/HD in a group of three-year-old children. Children identified as having a pre-school equivalent of AD/HD (N=19) and controls (N=19), matched for gender and IQ, completed a battery of inhibition and delay tasks. Correlational and factor analysis supported a dissociation between inhibitory deficits (go-no-go, set shifting) and delay aversion (choice delay) with delay of gratification cross-loading. Children with AD/HD displayed more inhibitory deficits and were more delay averse than controls. The data support the value of the distinction between motivational and cognitive pathways to AD/HD. Furthermore, the data suggest that such a distinction is apparent relatively early on during development.

Analysis of Variance↗

PubMed2003

Do executive deficits and delay aversion make independent contributions to preschool attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms?

OBJECTIVE: To test whether deficits in executive function and delay aversion make independent contributions to levels of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms exhibited by preschool children. METHOD: One hundred fifty-six children between 3 and 5.5 years old (78 girls and 78 boys) selected from the community completed an age-appropriate battery of tests measuring working memory, set shifting, planning, delay of gratification, and preference for delayed rewards. Parents completed a clinical interview about their children's ADHD symptoms. RESULTS: Analysis of test performance revealed two factors: executive dysfunction and delay aversion. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that when other factors (i.e., age, IQ, and conduct problems) were controlled, executive dysfunction and delay aversion each made significant independent contributions to predictions of ADHD symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Preschool ADHD symptoms are psychologically heterogeneous. Executive dysfunction and delay aversion may represent two distinct and early appearing neurodevelopmental bases for ADHD symptoms.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗

PubMed2002

Are planning, working memory, and inhibition associated with individual differences in preschool ADHD symptoms?

The association between executive function (EF; planning, working memory, and inhibition) and individual differences in symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was explored in a sample of preschool children. One hundred sixty children (between the ages of 3 years, 0 months and 5 years, 6 months), selected so as to oversample high ADHD scorers, performed 3 tasks previously shown to measure planning (Tower of London), working memory (Noisy Book) and inhibition ("Puppet Says..."). EF measures were reliable (kappa > .77) and were correlated with IQ (rs > .38) and age (rs > .59). Once IQ and age were controlled, planning and working memory (r = .41) were correlated. Planning and working memory were not correlated with inhibition (rs < .20). There was no association between ADHD and working memory or planning (rs < .12). There was a significant negative association between ADHD and conduct problems and inhibition (r = -.30 and r = -.25, respectively). Only the link with ADHD persisted after the effects of other factors were controlled for in a multiple regression. Specific deficits in inhibitory control rather than general EF deficits are associated with ADHD in the preschool period. This association is linear in nature, supporting the idea that ADHD is better seen as a continuum rather than a discrete category. This association provides evidence for Barkley's (1997) view that ADHD is underpinned by inhibitory deficits in the preschool period.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗

PubMed2002

Discrete-trial training for autistic children when reward is delayed: a comparison of conditioned cue value and response marking.

Three children with autism were taught to identify pictures of objects. Their speed of acquisition of receptive speech skills was compared across two conditions. In the cue-value condition, a compound audiovisual stimulus was presented after correct responses and again when a primary reinforcer was delivered after a 5-s delay; in the response-marking condition, a second stimulus was presented after both correct and incorrect responses, but not prior to the primary reinforcer. In both conditions primary reinforcement was delayed for 5 s. Although the children learned receptive speech skills in both conditions, acquisition was faster in the cue-value condition.

Autistic Disorder↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Teaching children with autism using conditioned cue-value and response-marking procedures: a socially valid procedure.

Five children with autism were taught to match printed words to corresponding pictures. Participants' speed of learning was compared across three training conditions, each involving a 5-s delay of reinforcement, using a within-participants alternating treatments design. In the cue-value condition, a verbal phrase of approval (e.g., "good!") was delivered only after correct responses and again after a 5-s delay when a primary reinforcer was delivered; in the response-marking condition, an attention-eliciting verbal cue (e.g., "look!") was delivered after both correct and incorrect responses, but not prior to the primary reinforcer; in the delay only condition, there were no cues during a 5-s delay. Performance in the no-cue control was inferior to both the cue-value and response-marking conditions, but there was little difference between the latter two conditions. The implications of these results for facilitating learning in applied settings are discussed.

Autistic Disorder↗