Assessing Social Consequences for Task Completion in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder

We used a concurrent operant assessment (COA) to evaluate social preferences for individuals with autism spectrum disorder across three comparison conditions: praise versus no interaction, preferred conversation topics versus no interaction, and preferred conversation topics versus praise. First, a multiple stimulus without replacement preference assessment was conducted to identify the preferred conversation topics and interests for all participants. Second, a COA was conducted where participants were able to choose which consequence they wanted to receive while working on an academic task during each comparison condition. We found that five out of six participants allocated more time to the praise side over no interaction, five out of six participants allocated more time to the preferred conversation topics over no interaction, and four out of six participants allocated more time to the preferred conversation topics over praise. The results indicate that social stimuli such as praise and preferred conversation topics may function as preferred stimuli indicating a need for future researchers and clinicians to individualize reinforcers. Thus, a proof-of-concept study is established to evaluate procedures for indicating preferences for types of social interaction.