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Preference Stability Across Assessment Methods and Stimulus Arrays

Angela Elcan1* and Amanda L. Verriden1
  • 1 New England Center for Children Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Identifying preferred items is an important aspect of education and treatment for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. When highly preferred items are identified, they can be used to facilitate and improve learning by reinforcing correct responses. Items selected more frequently in preference assessments generally correspond with a higher number of responses when used in reinforcer assessments (Fisher et al., 1992). Previous research has investigated how preference for a particular item is subject to change, which can ultimately affect the reinforcing value of that item. When the stability of paired stimulus (PS; Fisher et al., 1992) and multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO; DeLeon & Iwata, 1996) preference assessments has been compared using only leisure items, both assessments have yielded similarly high levels of stability (Verriden & Roscoe, 2016). Kelley, Shillingsburg and Bowen (2016) reported that stability of preference for edible items may affect stability of preference for leisure items when combined in the same assessment as leisure items. To our knowledge, there has not been research on the stability of preference when comparing both the assessment type and categories of stimuli (e.g., edible and leisure items). The purpose of the current study was to determine the extent to which preferences shift across two different assessment methods and two categories of stimuli within participants. Participants were students enrolled at The Mohammed bin Rashid Center for Special Education operated by The New England Center for Children. We evaluated the stability of the PS and the MSWO preference assessment results by replicating each assessment six times with each stimulus array. Four assessments were conducted on average over a two-week period (i.e., PS-leisure, PS-edible, MSWO-leisure, MSWO-edible), in a quasi-random order, totaling 24 assessments with each participant. A second independent observer collected interobserver agreement data for 35% of sessions across all participants. The average agreement across participants was 99% (range, 94-100%). Average correlation coefficients for each participant are depicted in Table 1. We did not find any discernable differences between correlation coefficients across assessment type or stimulus array, contradicting the assertion that assessments using edible stimuli yield more stability. Detailed assessment comparisons for one participant are depicted in Figure 1. Overall lower correlation coefficients were obtained across this participant’s assessment comparisons. Given the idiosyncratic results obtained across participants, it is important for clinicians and therapists to conduct frequent preference assessments to ensure they are identifying motivating items for their clients.

Figure 1
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References

DeLeon, I. G. & Iwata, B. A. (1996) Evaluation of a multiple-stimulus presentation format for assessing reinforcer preferences. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 29, 519-533. Fisher, W. W., Piazza, C. C., Bowman, L. G. & Amari A. (1996) Integrating caregiver report with a systematic choice assessment to enhance reinforcer identification. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 101, 15-25. Fisher, W., Piazza, C. C., Bowman, L. G., Hagopian, L. P., Owens, J. C. & Slevin, I. (1992) A comparison of two approaches for identifying reinforcers for persons with severe and profound disabilities. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25, 491-498. Kelley, M. E., Shillingsburg, M. A. & Bowen, C. N. (2016) Stability of daily preference across multiple individuals. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 49, 394-398. Verriden, A. L. & Roscoe, E. M. (2016) A comparison of preference-assessment methods. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 49, 265-285.

Keywords: Preference assessment, Preference stability, paired stimulus, Multiple stimulus without replacement, Autis Spectrum Disorder; ASD

Conference: 4th International Conference on Educational Neuroscience, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 10 Mar - 11 Mar, 2019.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Educational Neuroscience

Citation: Elcan A and Verriden AL (2019). Preference Stability Across Assessment Methods and Stimulus Arrays. Conference Abstract: 4th International Conference on Educational Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.229.00032

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Received: 28 Feb 2019; Published Online: 27 Sep 2019.

* Correspondence: Ms. Angela Elcan, New England Center for Children Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, aelcan@neccuae.org