Targeting+Social+Skills+Deficits+Outline

1: inapropriate comments (interrupting conversation) 2: inappropriate touching 3: social withdrawl.
 * In this article, a child named Stephen, who was diagnosed with PDD (Pervasive developmental disorders) is treated with intervention using differential reinforcement and corrective feedback.
 * Stephen is a 13 year old boy who has been diagnosed with PDD, ADHD, and mild retardation.
 * He exhibited inappropriate behavior such as making inappropriate comments and touching others without permission.
 * A therapist made distinctive categories of inappropriate action or non verbal communication that consisted of:
 * The therapist and observers also noted appropriate comments, such as “please” and “thank you”.
 * The intervention sessions consisted of a therapist seated at the table with Stephen for between 90 minutes and two hours.
 * During the baseline session the therapist just sat with Stephen and did not give feedback on Stephen's actions. During the intervention sessions, the therapist would continuously interact with Stephen if he was exhibiting inappropriate behavior.
 * The therapist would clearly explain proper behavior and detail how many offending behaviors the child committed.
 * If Stephen completed a session with seven or less inappropriate comments, he would receive two candy bars.
 * The results showed that through this method, over 47 sessions, inappropriate behavior decreased and appropriate comments increased during the sessions. Unfortunately, a second baseline test provided after 6 sessions showed that when the therapist was not corrective, Stephen resumed making inappropriate comments. The other three metrics however, were measurably improved.