Assessing preference for social interactions.

Five adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities took part. Each person sat at a table with two picture cards in front of them.

The cards showed two different therapists. When the participant touched a card, that therapist walked over and gave a short social greeting. The team recorded which card the person touched most often across many trials.

Every participant consistently approached one therapist more than the other. The chosen therapist was not always the same for each person.

Next, the preferred social greeting worked like candy or tokens. When the task earned that greeting, each adult worked faster and longer.

Geurts et al. (2008) already showed that one quick training teaches staff to run paired-choice tests. Tassé et al. (2013) now proves the same method works when the items are people, not toys.

Bowen et al. (2012) looked at dogs and wolves. Social petting lost to food every time. The new study flips the result: for humans with ID/DD, a smile and hello can beat edible treats. Species, not method, explains the gap.

Robinson et al. (2011) built a role-play test for autism. Both papers create fresh social tools, but J et al. keeps it simple: no scripts, no videos, just two cards and real therapists.

You no longer have to guess if attention or praise will work. Run a five-minute paired-choice test and let the client vote with their approach. Once you know the winning interaction, deliver it exactly as the reinforcer during teaching trials, breaks, or compliance requests. The procedure is free, fast, and staff can learn it in one brief rehearsal.