James Q. Simmons

Establishment of social reinforcers in two schizophrenic children on the basis of food

Abstract This paper presented a method for, and data pertaining to, the establishment and maintenance of social stimuli as reinforcers for certain behaviors of two schizophrenic children characterized as autistic. The experimental procedure consisted of two phases. The first phase was concerned with the establishment of the social stimulus as discriminative for food. The second phase involved the delivery of the social stimulus contingent upon a bar-pressing response, as a test of any reinforcing properties it might have acquired during the first phase. The results show that (a) the social stimulus acquired reinforcing properties for these children (several thousand responses were made to it), and (b) as long as the social stimulus was maintained as discriminative for food it showed no signs of losing its acquired reinforcing propertics.

Language Patterns of Adolescent Autistics.

The language samples of seven verbal autistic adolescents were analyzed. Linguistic deficits were compared to characteristics reported for preteen autistics and described structurally. Only four subjects demonstrated linguistic impairments. These clustered primarily in the area of prosodic features, semantic cooccurrence constraints and general disfluency. No such clustering had been reported for the preteen population. No correlation between linguistic deficits, IQ, and age was found. However, performance on the Seashore Test for Musical Ability correlated highly with linguistic performance. Results suggest that (a) autism includes linguistically, and possibly etiologically, distinct subgroups; (b) the basic linguistic deficits in autism may be more specific than thought previously; and (c) perception of prosodie features may be crucial for decoding and encoding linguistic signals. Autistic children may be lacking in this ability.

An extinction procedure for eliminating self-destructive behavior in a 9-year-old autistic girl

A 24-week program of 2 daily 2-hour sessions of noncontingent social isolation was successful in eliminating multiple self-destructive behaviors in a 9-year-old autistic child. A previous program of response-contingent shock met with failure, resulting in (1) increased self-destructive responding, (2) complete suppression of self-feeding, and (3) the necessity for constant physical restraint. Generalization of the extinction program to the ward was inferred on the basis of the subjects subsequent cessation of restraint-wearing, a decrease in self-destructive behavior in the dayroom and subsequently in other settings following the removal of restraints, and a renewed interest in food. A brief program based upon elements of the noncontingent social isolation program was sufficient to reinstitute self-feeding. The subject was gradually removed from social isolation sessions with no reappearance of self-destruction. However, during week 72, self-destructive behavior again appeared, at which time a reinstatement of the original program dramatically reduced its rate.

A Comparison of Language Issues in High-Functioning Autism and Related Disorders with Onset in Childhood and Adolescence

Speech, language, and communication in autism present a heterogeneous and complex picture that has fascinated clinicians and researchers since Kanner’s (1943) original description of the syndrome. Deficits in these areas have been studied from the perspectives of normal language development, their relationship to cognition, and more recently, their relationship to socialization and affect (Baron-Cohen, 1988, 1989a; Hobson, 1986; Sigman, Mundy, Sherman & Ungerer, 1986). Important variables in these studies have included IQ, age, language acquisition history, and age of onset, as well as remedial and pharmacological intervention. While language function can vary considerably based on these variables, communication behaviors in autism appear to remain flawed in specific ways and constitute an essential aspect of the total diagnostic picture. Foremost are impairments in pragmatics, or the use of language in a social context. Fillmore (1981) characterized the are of pragmatics from a structural-functional perspective as “a three-termed relationship that unites (a) linguistic form and (b) the communicative functions that these forms are capable of serving, with (c) the contexts or settings in which those linguistic forms can have those communicative functions” (p. 144). Recent reviews of pragmatic deficits in autism are provided by Watson (1988) and Baron-Cohen (1988).

Non-Gaussian behavior of the EEG in Down's syndrome suggests decreased neuronal connections.

Computer analyses of the electroencephalograms of normal children, and children with Downs syndrome who were mentally retarded, revealed differences in the distribution of amplitude between the two groups. Normal children, in the early postnatal period, generate EEGs which have a non‐Gaussian distribution of amplitude that becomes increasingly Gaussian before one year of age and remains so throughout subsequent development. Conversely, the EEGs of children with Downs syndrome exhibit highly non‐Gaussian properties at all ages studied. The EEGs of two mentally retarded autistic children did not show this property, so it is not merely a concomitant of mental retardation. The first‐order Gaussian distribution may reflect the degree of inteneuronal coupling; since an increased number of connections on any neuron implies decreased functional dependence of that neuron on any other particular single neuron, the present evidence, which indicates stronger interneuronal coupling in mongoloids, suggests that Downs syndrome may be associated with incomplete postnatal development of interconnections between cortical neurons.

CASE STUDY: USE OF DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT TO SUPPRESS SELF-INJURIOUS AND AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR

A program of differential reinforcement of other behavior was employed to reduce the rates of aggression and head-banging in a 6-yr., 8-mo.-old profoundly retarded female. Whereas, two different time-out procedures were not associated with stable decreases in aggressive behavior, this program was associated with immediate and dramatic decreases in aggression and head-banging. The present results suggest that (a) initial values of such programs may be situation-specific and (b) either the procedure or the inclusion of contingencies for all maladaptives within one program may be superior to a time-out program which focuses on a subset of all maladaptive behavior.

Discourse cohesion in the verbal interactions of individuals diagnosed with autistic disorder or schizotypal personality disorder

Autistic disorder and schizotypal personality disorder have been characterised as social communication spectrum disorders. However, it is not clear whether, or by what parameters, the two disorders differ with regard to social use of language. This study compares highfunctioning adolescents with autism and cognitively similar adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder in one aspect of social language use, namely referencing. Cohesion analysis is used to examine pronominal, demonstrative, and comparative references in dialogue from semi-structured interviews. The study finds that adolescents with schizotypal personality disorder use cohesiveties of reference more often and more correctly than do the adolescents with autism. However, both groups have similar rates, types, and patterns of cohesive reference errors. These results indicate that referencing skills in individuals with autism and schizotypal personality disorder are faulty in similar ways, producing similar disruptive effects on the smooth...

Dermatoglyphics of Childhood Psychosis: A Family Study

Two studies report statistically significant differences in dermatoglyphic patterns between individuals with childhood psychosis and randomly selected controls. Such differences could constitute fairly strong evidence that some factors, genetic or environmental, disrupted the development of these children in utero. In an attempt to confirm these reports, we studied a group of psychotic children using their parents and normal siblings as controls. Our results indicate no differences between the affected children and their relatives. Our ability to detect subtle differences was precluded by the small sample available for analysis.