Incorporating Special Interests into Task Analyses and Story Problems to Increase Accurate Responding for a Child with Autism. Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By: Bobby W. Huffman Graduate Program in Educational Studies The Ohio State University 2017 Master’s Examination Committee: Dr. Helen Malone - Advisor Dr. Mathew Brock Copyrighted by Bobby W. Huffman 2017 Abstract According to the DSM-V, one common characteristic of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the frequent engagement in repetitive and restricted interests. Over time, the continuous fixation on these restricted interests may impede on valuable learning opportunities throughout the school day. The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of incorporating restricted interests (herein after referred as “special interests”) into mathematical story problems and the task analyses used during instruction to increase the overall accuracy and decrease interresponse time (IRT) between the steps of the task analyses for an elementary school age girl with ASD. A multiple baseline design across mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, and multiplication) was employed to examine the effectiveness of this intervention. The results demonstrate that incorporating the special interests into the story problems and task analyses significantly increased the participant’s accuracy, however, it did not decrease her IRT. The participant’s mother and paraprofessional reported they would implement this type of intervention in the future. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. ii Acknowledgments Special thanks to Dr. Helen Malone and Mary Barczak for their time spent providing guidance to support my research and the revisions to this paper. I also owe a great deal of appreciation to Dr. Diane Sainato who inspired me to become interested in behavior analysis and always pushed me to attend conferences, make presentations, and conduct research. Last but not least, I would like to thank my wife for all the support she gave me and the extra work she endured with our three children so I could pursue my efforts in graduate school. iii Vita June 2001 ...................................................... Unioto High School 2008 ............................................................... B.A. Early Childhood Education, Ohio University 2012-Present ................................................. Graduate Student, Applied Behavior Analysis and Special Education, The Ohio State University 2017 .............................................................. Expected M.A. Applied Behavior Analysis and Special Education, The Ohio State University Publications Huffman, R. W., Sainato, D. M., & Curiel, E. S. (2016). Correspondence training using special interests to increase compliance during transitions: An emerging technology. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 9, 25–33. doi: 10.1007/s40617-015-0100-1 Fields of Study Major Field: Educational Studies iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments .............................................................................................................. iii Vita ..................................................................................................................................... iv Publications ........................................................................................................................ iv Fields of Study ................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ v List of Tables ................................................................................................................... viii List of Figures .................................................................................................................... ix Chapter 1: Background and Literature Review .................................................................. 1 Chapter 2: Method .............................................................................................................. 7 Participant and Setting ................................................................................................. 7 Materials ...................................................................................................................... 8 Dependent Variables and Data Collection Materials ................................................ 10 Research Design ........................................................................................................ 11 Experimental Conditions ........................................................................................... 12 Pre-baseline ........................................................................................................ 12 Baseline .............................................................................................................. 13 v Incorporating Special Interests ........................................................................... 14 Maintenance Probes ........................................................................................... 14 Inter-observer Agreement and Procedural Fidelity ................................................... 15 Social Validity ........................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 3: Results ............................................................................................................. 18 Mean IRT Assessment ............................................................................................... 18 MSWO ....................................................................................................................... 18 Baseline ..................................................................................................................... 18 Incorporation Special Interests .................................................................................. 19 Maintenance Probes ................................................................................................... 22 Social Validity ........................................................................................................... 26 Chapter 4: Discussion ....................................................................................................... 24 Implications for Classroom Practice ......................................................................... 26 Limitations and Future Research ............................................................................... 27 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 29 References ......................................................................................................................... 30 APPENDIX A: BASELINE ADDITION/SUBTRACTION TASK ANALYSIS ............ 38 APPENDIX B: BASELINE MULTIPLICATION TASK ANALYSIS ........................... 40 APPENDIX C: ADDITION TASK ANALYSIS WITH SPECIAL INTERESTS .......... 42 vi APPENDIX D: SUBTRACTION TASK ANALYSIS WITH SPECIAL INTERESTS .. 44 APPENDIX E: STORY PROBLEM EXEMPLARS ....................................................... 46 APPENDIX F: ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION DATA SHEET .............................. 48 APPENDIX G: MULTIPLICATION DATA SHEET ..................................................... 50 APPENDIX H: MSWO DATA SHEET ........................................................................... 52 APPENDIX I: PROCEDURAL FIDELITY CHECKLIST .............................................. 54 vii List of Tables Table 1. Social validity results ......................................................................................... 17 Table 2. The mean and range of the percentage of correct responding per task analysis . 19 Table 3. The mean and range of total IRT per task analysis ............................................. 23 viii List of Figures Figure 1. Task analyses without and with special interests for addition ............................ 9 Figure 2. Percentage of correct responding per task analysis ........................................... 20 Figure 3. Total IRT per session ......................................................................................... 22 ix Chapter 1: Background and Review of the Literature According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-V; APA, 2013), one diagnostic component for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is the frequent engagement in interests that are highly restricted and abnormal with regards to intensity or focus. Researchers have labeled these types of interests as special interests (Attwood, 1998), obsessions (Baker, 1998; Myles & Simpson, 2003), circumscribed interests (Attwood, 2003), and fixations (Happe, 2001), and they have examined the impact of these interests on the everyday lives of individuals with ASD (Gunn & Butt, 2016). In previous studies, these types of interests have included a wide range of topics such as toilet brushes (Attwood, 1998), photocopiers (Myles & Adreon, 2001), jigsaw puzzles (Carnett et al., 2014), and rock and roll musicians (Huffman,