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Biomedical subjects

N H Huguenin

Publications and source records attributed to N H Huguenin.

6 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Employing computer technology to assess visual attention in young children and adolescents with severe mental retardation.

The intent of this investigation was to establish a valid and sensitive computer measurement technique for educational assessment applications. An integral part of the investigation was to establish the similarities and differences in how prior reinforcement histories of individual stimuli affect attention to compound visual cues for young children of normal development versus adolescents with severe mental retardation, both groups having comparable mental age. A series of identical conflict compound discrimination tasks was presented to the two groups. In addition, generalization effects were investigated for both groups by presenting compounds containing some or all novel cues. The similarities and differences in performance for young children of normal development and adolescents with severe mental retardation were analyzed using multiple testing procedures. In addition to assessing stimulus control by presenting stimulus components separately following acquisition of compound discriminations, response topographies of the compound stimuli were recorded with a touch screen attached to a computer monitor screen. This study demonstrated that overselective attention did not occur only for students with severe mental retardation but also for young children of normal development if multiple tests were employed. A difference was found, however, between the two populations in the efficiency with which they shifted attention among elements of complex stimuli depending on prior conditioning histories. Presentation of compounds whose components had conflicting reinforcement histories was found to be a more sensitive assessment technique than presentation of compounds containing some or all novel components for distinguishing between the two groups. The use of multiple testing procedures was critical in preventing false conclusions from altered test performances arising from reinforcement contingencies in effect during the test.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1993

Reducing chronic noncompliance in an individual with severe mental retardation to facilitate community integration.

Behavioral techniques facilitated the community integration of a young adult with severe mental retardation, which was jeopardized due to his noncompliance and severe aggression. Positive reinforcement and nonexclusionary timeout were employed to address noncompliance in his school and home environments. At school positive reinforcement was provided whenever the client walked a specified distance while either entering or leaving the school building without sitting down. If the client did sit down inappropriately, he was placed in a 5-minute nonexclusionary time-out. A similar procedure was carried out at home by the client's mother. Results showed that inappropriate sitting decreased and eventually reached a zero level. The program also reduced his aggression, which was prompted by physical carrying by others.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1985

Attention to multiple cues by severely mentally retarded adults: effects of single-component pretraining.

The present investigation examined whether the amount of compatible single-element training affected response accuracy for conditional-discrimination tasks requiring attention to multiple cues. Four severely mentally retarded adults participated, and a multiple baseline across subjects and reversal design was employed. Following acquisition of conditional discriminations by individually training each stimulus element, transfer tests were provided. In the first transfer condition, two intermixed conditional-discrimination tasks were presented containing identical stimuli to those individually trained. The second transfer condition consisted of two intermixed conditional-discrimination tasks composed of novel S- stimuli and pretrained S+ stimuli. Finally, a control procedure was administered in which conditional-discrimination tasks contained all untrained cues. The severely mentally retarded subjects did learn to respond to multiple cues. Establishing separate control by each component produced attention to two aspects of compound stimuli with few errors occurring. In addition, these broadened attentional skills generalized to multistimulus tasks containing all or some of the original pretrained stimuli. If single-element training was omitted, performance on conditional-discrimination tasks was greatly impaired.

Adult↗
PubMed1980

Visual attention in retarded adults: combining stimuli which control incompatible behavior.

Eight severely retarded young men learned color and line-tilt discrimination. After 95% accuracy was achieved for both dimensions, they were combined to form "conflict-compound" stimuli in which prior reinforcement history was reversed for one element of the compound and unchanged for the other. When responding to the compound was 95% accurate, control exerted by each element was measured. The unchanged element consistently exercised control in agreement with the reinforcement contingencies associated with the compound, regardless of whether it was color or line orientation. The reversed element, which had a conflicting prior history or reinforcement, most often exerted control associated wtih original training, or no control, suggesting that it had been "ignored" during the compound. Conflict compounds produced selective attention. When elements were combined to form "compatible-compound" stimuli, both exercised control in agreement with the compound in post-tests. Selective attention was not produced by compatible compounds.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Reducing overselective attention to compound visual cues with extended training in adolescents with severe mental retardation.

Because of the devastating impact a disturbance in responding to multiple cues can have on a child's development, this investigation determined whether computer touch-screen technology could be utilized to improve the attentional skills of students with severe developmental disabilities after attentional deficits were initially identified. In particular, we assessed whether establishing prior reinforcement histories for separate stimuli would control how adolescents with severe mental retardation attended to visual compounds when extended training was given. Initially, prior reinforcement contingencies of individual stimuli failed to control the attention of the adolescents (Huguenin, 1997). Longer single stimulus pretraining and additional exposure to compounds containing stimulus components with conflicting reinforcement histories, however, eventually proved effective in determining what aspects of complex visual cues they attended to. In most instances, the adolescents selectively responded to stimulus elements whose prior reinforcement histories were unchanged in the compound after additional training was administered. Stimulus elements with a reversed prior reinforcement contingency were usually ignored. The reliability of the effect of prior reinforcement histories of individual stimulus elements on attention to visual compounds following additional training was confirmed with multiple testing procedures, automatically administered by a computer. Even though presenting conflict compounds initially identified students with overselective attention, extended exposure to single stimulus training and conflict compounds alleviated stimulus overselectivity and improved their attentional skills. After individual stimulus-response relations were reestablished and sufficiently reinforced to reduce disrupting effects when compound training cues were presented, stimulus overselectivity was eliminated. Through longer single stimulus pretraining and additional exposure to training compounds, adolescents with severe mental retardation learned to selectively attend to each component of visual compounds when prior reinforcement histories associated with the individual stimulus elements were manipulated. The findings of this investigation indicated that overselective attention among students with developmental disabilities is not an unmodifiable perceptual characteristic. They also revealed that overselective attention may be due to the disrupting effects of compound training cues which can be minimized through longer single stimulus pretraining and repeated presentations of compound training cues. Utilizing computer technology to administer procedures similar to those described in this study may permit students with developmental disabilities to acquire essential attentional skills for learning educational tasks involving complex cues.

Adolescent↗