Koegel L K, Koegel R L, Smith A
Autism Research Center, Graduate School of Education, University of California-Santa Barbara 3106-9490, USA.
J Autism Dev Disord. 1997 Jun;27(3):233-43. doi: 10.1023/a:1025894213424.
The purpose of this experiment was to assess whether manipulation of variables related to motivation and attention in children with autism would influence performance on standardized tests. Two different testing conditions were compared: One consisted of the usual standardized testing procedures; during the other, specific variables that were hypothesized to relate to each child's responsiveness to task stimuli were manipulated. Data were collected in the context of a repeated reversals experimental design with condition order varied within and across children. Six children participated in a total of 44 separate testing sessions, controlled for order of conditions, number of sessions, and type of test. Results showed consistent differences between the two conditions, suggesting that improving motivation and attention in children with autism may considerably influence test performance and interpretation. Findings are discussed in relation to the difficulty in administering and interpreting changes in performance on standardized tests with this population.
本实验的目的是评估对自闭症儿童与动机和注意力相关的变量进行操控是否会影响标准化测试的成绩。比较了两种不同的测试条件：一种是常规的标准化测试程序；另一种是在测试过程中，对那些被假设与每个孩子对任务刺激的反应性相关的特定变量进行操控。数据收集采用重复逆转实验设计，条件顺序在儿童内部和儿童之间变化。六名儿童总共参与了44次单独的测试环节，对条件顺序、测试环节数量和测试类型进行了控制。结果显示两种条件之间存在一致的差异，这表明提高自闭症儿童的动机和注意力可能会显著影响测试成绩及成绩解读。结合对该群体进行标准化测试时在管理和解读成绩变化方面的困难对研究结果进行了讨论。
