An evaluation of preference stability within MSWO preference assessments for children with autism

Previous research has commonly evaluated preference stability over time and across multiple preference assessment administrations. No studies have evaluated shifts in preference across consecutive rounds of a single preference assessment, where rounds refer to each time the experimenter resets the stimulus-presentation array. The purpose of the present study was to examine the stability of stimulus selections across successive rounds of a multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO) preference assessment with different classes of stimuli for children with autism. The study involved a secondary data analysis and calculation of preference stability across consecutive rounds using Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients (Spearman's $$ ) for 17 participants across 40 MSWO preference assessments. Patterns of preference stability were observed in 24 out of the 40 assessments (60%) indicating that children's preferences in this study were slightly more likely to be classified as stable than other observed patterns of responding.