Autistic self-stimulation and intertrial interval duration.
The relationship of short vs. long intertrial intervals to autistic children's correct responding and autistic self-stimulatory behavior was examined. Measures were also obtained on the children's other types of self-stimulatory behavior during all conditions of the experiment. The results showed that: (a) for any given child/task combination, short intertrial intervals produced decreased levels of autistic self-stimulatory responding, (b) increased levels of correct responding occurred during the short intertrial interval conditions, and (c) the category of "other" self-stimulatory behavior was not systematically related to either correct responding or to the length of the intertrial interval. These results were discussed in terms of their implications for understanding self-stimulatory behavior and for teaching autistic children.
D001321:Autistic Disorder / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D004495:Education of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities; D006801:Humans; D011930:Reaction Time; D012653:Self Stimulation; D013239:Stereotyped Behavior