Motivating autistic children through stimulus variation.
Switch tasks often during DTT—kids stay accurate and happy.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team ran two kinds of DTT sessions with autistic children.
One session drilled the same task over and over.
The other session switched tasks every few trials.
They tracked correct answers and how happy the kids looked.
What they found
Kids answered more questions correctly when tasks changed often.
Their smiles and eye contact stayed high in the mixed-task format.
Constant drilling led to more errors and flat faces.
How this fits with other research
Wing (1981) tried the same idea with reinforcers instead of tasks.
That study rotated toys and praise while keeping the task the same.
Both papers show that any kind of variety keeps autistic kids sharp.
Dell’Aringa et al. (2021) later asked if special “transfer trials” help.
They found no extra gain, so simple task swaps still look best.
Why it matters
You can add this tweak today.
Write three short tasks on one data sheet.
Cycle through them every five trials.
You will likely see fewer refusals and quicker right answers.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study evaluated the differential effectiveness of two methods of presenting discrimination tasks when teaching autistic children. In a constant task condition, the common method of presenting a single task throughout a session was used. In a varied task condition, the same task was interspersed with a variety of other tasks from the children's clinic curricula. Results showed declining trends in correct responding during the constant task condition, with substantially improved and stable responding during the varied task conditions. In addition, naive observers judged the children to be more enthusiastic, interested, happier, and better behaved during the varied task sessions. These results suggest that "boredom" may be a particularly important variable to control in the treatment of autistic children, and that particular care may be necessary when defining criteria for task acquisition. The results are discussed in relation to the literature on increased responsivity to stimulus novelty and variation.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1980 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1980.13-619