1 University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC, USA.
2 Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA.
Behav Modif. 2019 Nov;43(6):790-818. doi: 10.1177/0145445519859803. Epub 2019 Jul 26.
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may engage in repetitive social-communication behaviors that can limit their skill acquisition, access to reinforcement, and access to less restrictive settings. Basic and applied research indicates that variability, or the extent to which responses are topographically different from one another, is influenced by antecedent and consequence interventions. Our purpose in this study is to systematically review the literature on interventions to increase variable social-communication behaviors in individuals with ASD. We identified 32 studies through a database search and screened them using the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) Single-Case Design Standards. Eighteen studies containing 55 cases met WWC Design Standards. We coded the descriptive characteristics and strength of evidence based on visual analysis from each of these 18 studies and calculated effect sizes using Tau-U. Our results indicate that most cases (65%) provide strong evidence of a functional relation between the interventions and varied social-communication behaviors, and the median Tau-U was .82. We discuss the implications of our results for practice and for future research on interventions designed to increase variability with this population.
自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）个体可能会表现出重复的社交沟通行为，这可能会限制他们的技能习得、获得强化物的机会，以及进入限制较少的环境。基础和应用研究表明，变异性，即反应在地形上彼此不同的程度，受到前因和后果干预的影响。我们在这项研究中的目的是系统地回顾关于增加自闭症谱系障碍个体可变社交沟通行为的干预措施的文献。我们通过数据库搜索确定了 32 项研究，并使用 What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) 单一案例设计标准对其进行了筛选。符合 WWC 设计标准的 18 项研究包含 55 个案例。我们根据这 18 项研究中的每一项的视觉分析对描述性特征和证据强度进行了编码，并使用 Tau-U 计算了效应量。我们的结果表明，大多数情况下（65%）提供了干预措施与变化的社交沟通行为之间存在功能关系的有力证据，中位数 Tau-U 为.82。我们讨论了我们的结果对实践和针对这一人群设计的增加变异性的干预措施的未来研究的影响。
