Quality of life for neurodiverse individuals, including autistic individuals and those with Down syndrome, depends significantly on their ability to navigate social interactions and maintain personal safety in community settings. This course examines two critical skill domains that directly impact independence and community participation: social communication skills, particularly conversational skills between autistic individuals, and stranger safety skills for neurodiverse young adults.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via Women in Behavior Analysis
Take This Course →Including ethics, supervision, and topics like this one. New live CEU every Wednesday.
Join Free →When identifying skills to teach autistic individuals and those with Down's Syndrome it is important to consider their wants and needs and teach the skills that will allow for them to have the greatest quality of life (Pfeiffer et al., 2017). Interpersonal relationships and accessing the community have been described as essential pillars impacting quality of life (Shalock, 2000). Therefore, the present symposium highlights two studies whose goals focused on identifying interventions to help neurodiverse individuals develop friendships and increase their independence in the community. In Study 1, autistic children and adolescents were paired into dyads of their choosing and then taught to maintain back-and-forth conversations with each other through text messaging. The researchers also assessed the transfer of these skills to face-to-face conversations and across conversational partners, as well as how they were maintained overtime. In study 2, autistic young adults and one individual with Down's Syndrome were taught stranger safety skills through behavior skills training. The generalizability and maintenance of the skills were also assessed. In the design and implementation of both studies' consideration was taken to uphold the values of the BACB ethics code. In particular, the studies considered their ethical responsibly to the client by assessing the importance the client and caregivers gave to learning these skills, including the client preferences throughout the study, utilizing naturalistic environments to assist with generalization, and in the case of study 1 continuing to provide treatment despite extenuating circumstances (Covid-19 pandemic). The symposium is concluded by the discussant who considers the impact of the interventions used and the findings of these two studies, as well as how they fall into the current direction the applied behavior analysis field is going.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | Ethics |
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
280 research articles with practitioner takeaways
279 research articles with practitioner takeaways
258 research articles with practitioner takeaways
You earn CEUs from a dozen different places. Upload any certificate — from here, your employer, conferences, wherever — and always know exactly where you stand. Learning, Ethics, Supervision, all handled.
No credit card required. Cancel anytime.
All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.