Research: Treating Excessively Slow Responding of a Young Man with Asperger Syndrome Using Differential Reinforcement of Short Response Latencies

Authored by Tiger, JH, Bouxsein KJ, and Fisher WW in Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, Volume 40, Issue 3, p. 559-563, (2007).

Article summary (posted Dec 14, 2007):

Applied behavior analysis (ABA) may be able to speed up response time in people with Asperger Syndrome.

This paper describes a case study of a young man with Asperger Syndrome who was taught, using ABA therapy, to respond quickly. The ABA therapy worked and his response time went from 19.9 seconds to 5 seconds. This change was noticed on questions where the young man knew the answer. When he did not know the answer, he only improved by 2-3 seconds in his response time. The quicker response time was generalized across many questions. The authors note that the study had only one person and looked at only a few tasks (answering math questions).

Links:

You can access the original abstract and the complete paper is sometimes available for free via Google Scholar (look for entries that say "PDF" or "HTML" on the right side of the page).
applied behavior analysis (ABA), Asperger Syndrome, autism, case study, math, reinforcement, therapy
Share |