Exploring Methods of Changing Restrictive Repetitive Behaviors
Abstract
In contemporary research, restrictive, repetitive behaviours represent a crucial aspect of autism spectrum disorder. While there has been an expansion in the research into this area as of late, contrasted with social-correspondence weaknesses experienced by adults with an autism spectrum disorder, considerably less is thought about their advancement, aetiology, and management. Researcher intercessions have become progressively well known in the field. Several studies are reporting critical discoveries in social communication and psychological improvement in youth. Restricted and repetitive behaviours are frequently not unequivocally focused on or independent as a result within these mediations. This paper reviews how one caregiver intervention managed restricted and repetitive behaviour in a single subject experimental research. It involves an adult with an autism spectrum disorder.
Keywords: restrictive, repetitive behaviours, autism spectrum disorder, elements, methods, techniques, results
Table of Contents
Exploring Methods of Changing Restrictive Repetitive Behaviors. 4
Limitations and Future Direction. 10
Study Background
The main goal of this study is to think about what method can reduce his repetitive behaviour of overusing the same question over and over again. After taking the data, the researcher thought that a good strategy could be to redirect his augmentative communication materials or topic notebook to assist himself with initiation or topic shift. It will remind him of using a visual or verbal cue, of what has been learned in scripted practice that would apply to a situation. It will also help set a limit on the number of his repetitive questions or the amount of time for the interaction and share this information with him. It allows the researcher to let him know when he will be free to talk on a different topic and have it built into his schedule and reverse the question to see if he already knows the answer to his question. Finally, the researcher can suggest an alternative activity, so the opportunity for interaction is maintained. Still, the focus shifts from the attempt at conversation to something of mutual interest and less stress. A checklist is used so that if the questions reflect anxiety about his schedule, he can independently check off events until the target activity occurs. He can also write the answer on paper as the question is answered the first time or redirect back to the message on the paper if the question is repeated and the assumed function of seeking information is the same. It also helps to determine if he had already been told this information (i.e., responses to his questions).
Exploring Methods of Changing Restrictive Repetitive Behaviors
Caregivers and relatives are frequently confused about what to do when an individual starts to pose repetitive questions. Like most things that include people over the autism spectrum, the appropriate response cannot be obvious. Instead, it is dependent on the conditions encompassing the utilization of repetitive questions. The primary conceptualization of autism as restrictive, and repetitive behaviours (restrictive, repetitive behaviours) incorporates a central component of autism. It also entails the main side effects of social and communication issues. This view has not changed for the past 60 years of research on repetitive behaviours among people with autism spectrum disorder as observed in Jarvis, Van Leeuwen, Boonen, Maes and Noens (2011). The primary role of restrictive, repetitive behaviours in the demonstrative portrayal of autism has started to be tested by a few, and this raises suggestions at a practical and approach level for analysis, commonness appraisals, and intervention. This research paper looks at intervention strategy for a single subject (patient) with Autism Spectrum Disorder (autism spectrum disorder).
Patients with autism experience critical weaknesses in social and non-social data processing, for which not many medical treatments have been created. Huge debilitations portray autism spectrum disorder in social connection, verbal and non-verbal communication shortfalls, and restrictive and restrictive repetitive behaviours (Kulage, Smaldone and Cohn, 2014). Hidden in these behaviour impedances are fundamental neurobiologically-based weakness in social and non-social data handling. It causes significant practical handicaps all through the lives of people with autism spectrum disorder (Happe and Ronald, 2009). Social-intellectual debilitations have been seen in numerous spaces in autism, and participant shortages for perspective-taking, feeling recognition, and social setting research capacities.
Method
Participants
The participant is a 21 years old male patient named Peter (N = 1). He was born with Autism Spectrum Disorder and had been receiving care for 24 hours per day. He is a relative to the researcher. The participant does not go to school. He does not know how to read nor write, and he has never been sexually active. He is physically healthy, but when it comes to self-help skills like showering or dressing, or handling money, or look both ways when crossing the street, things change, and his difficulty is apparent.
His typically daily routine is to wake up very early in the morning, turn on the TV and watch shows until everyone else will wake up, and someone will make him some breakfast. Then, he wants to go out and meet some of his friends or neighbours and say good morning or have a conversation with them about things he did the day before. Peter likes to walk a lot because it relieves his stress and his anxiety, so he goes to the shopping centre by the house, and he watches people doing their daily activities or shopping. When he comes back home, he likes to talk about all people or things he observed while he was enjoying his walk at the shopping centre and on his way back home. He loves dogs every time he sees a dog he comes home and makes a funny story about it. He also likes to observe car magazines and talk about their colour or their design.
Materials
The researcher utilized a data collection sheet to record the observations and changes exhibited by the participant. Baseline data were independently collected for one week preceding that point’s mediation. It was collected by recording each question posed concerning the particular change introduced. The change in questions and themes were observed and recorded on the data collection sheet each time they are asked within five hours.
Design
Single-subject withdrawal design was utilized in this study. Reverse or withdrawal plans include the orderly presentation and evacuation of the independent factor over the independent and intercession conditions. In withdrawal plans, the independent factor is just acquainted with the target impact behaviour during the intercession stages, and this independent variable is absent during the independent periods of the research. Withdrawal structures take into account the solid appraisal of treatment adequacy through the presentation and withdrawal of the treatment during the trial. However, according to Vandenberg (2010), these structures cannot be utilized to address circumstances in which there are moral concerns in regards to the withdrawal of treatment or situations that include irreversible treatment impacts.
The study is separated into different phases. The participant Peter is tested under one condition for every phase. The conditions are assigned regularly by capital letters starting with A, B, C…Another aspect of the single-subject design is the change starts with one condition before introducing the next. This does not typically happen after a fixed time or number of perceptions, as observed by Schwab (2006). It, however, relies upon the participant’s behaviour. In particular, the researcher holds up until the participant’s behaviour in one repeating the same question turns out to be genuinely predictable from perception to perception before evolving conditions. This is once in a while, alluded to as the consistent state technique. The thought is that when the dependent variable (DV) has reached a consistent state, any change across conditions will be moderately simple to identify. The researcher observed this equivalent standard while the experimental study all the more for the most part. The impact of an independent factor is simpler to distinguish when the “clamour” in the data is limited.
Extinction alludes to a methodology utilized in Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) in which fortification that is provided for problem behaviour (regularly inadvertently) is suspended to reduce or take out events of these sorts of negative (or issue) behaviours. While this methodology is most generally used in patients with Autism and Down Syndrome, it can likewise be used effectively to address a more extensive cluster of issue behaviours, including those displayed by people without development incapacities (Sreejesh and Mohapatra, 2013). Extinction systems frequently take one distinctive structure contingent on the elements of the behaviour (i.e., What is causing the behaviour). One of the structures is to utilize extinction behaviours maintained by improvement feedback.
Procedure
The researcher used the method of extinction, which worked at some point. Extinction does not require the use of punishment procedures to decrease problem behaviour. It merely requires the withholding of reinforcement by ignoring a behaviour or replacing that behaviour with a task. Every time Peter was about to say “Should I be nervous?”, the researcher interrupted telling him to start singing it (which he hates doing). So, when he was refusing to do it, the researcher was making up a song, including his repetitive question. His was even when the researcher was on the phone with him. Because he was annoyed from it, either he was changing the subject by telling about something important that he heard on TV or he would only pause and wait for the researcher to stop, and then he was asking the researcher how his day goes. That would last for more than 20 minutes with him not asking at all if he should be nervous, which is huge progress comparing to his every five minutes repetition. The daily schedule has not changed. However, his use of this method with him and the different activities that we started doing together on his days off changed a lot of both of us live.
When the researcher goes back home late at night after school and work, he spends almost an hour again just talking with him about how his day went and what did he do and what he sees is him repeating his question over and over again almost every five minutes. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, his repetitive behaviour is more frequent because he is not seeing him for more than half an hour. When he gets back home, he is tired. When he calls Peter on the phone during those days, all he is asking the researcher is if he should be nervous over and over again.
Data was recorded for an entire week that the researcher spends more time with the participant at home. On Saturdays and Sundays, the participant was busier with the researcher at home by cooking or reading a book together. They would also put their thoughts on paper and draw what they were thinking or only watch TV or a movie together. At that time, the participant did not repeat his question, and he does not feel the need to ask the researcher if he should be nervous about something. So his restrictive, repetitive behaviour decreases where his mind is busy. The same thing happens on his day off on Thursday when the researcher has time again to spend with him. On Thursdays, the researcher takes him to the gym with the researcher, and they spend there almost two hours working out and talk more about his physical activity. However, when they go back home, they both take some time to themselves lying down on the couch. He will ask the researcher again, “should I be nervous?” because he knows that on Friday, they will not spend enough time together, so he will start feeling nervous once again about what is going on around him.
Data Analysis
When inspecting the collected data visually, the single-subject researcher considered a few elements. One of them is changes in the degree of the DV from condition to condition. It meant that the treatment affected the participant response if the independent variable is higher or lower in one condition compared to another. The second factor considered in the study is the trend exhibited by the participant during the study. It entails progressive reductions and increases in the DV across perceptions. If the DV starts increasing or decreasing with an adjustment in conditions, it, therefore, implies that the treatment affected. It tends to be particularly telling when a pattern alters course—for instance when undesirable behaviour is rising during standard yet then starts to reduce with the introduction of the treatment the third factor considered in the study is the latency. This is the time it takes for the DV to start changing after an adjustment in conditions. As a rule, if an adjustment in the DV starts soon after an adjustment in conditions. This shows that the change was because of the treatment.
Besides, the latencies of these progressions are short. The change happens right away as noted by Lambrecht, Van Leeuwen, Boonen, Maes and Noens (2011). This example of results unequivocally proposes that the treatment was responsible for the adjustments in the DV. Also, although there have all the earmarks of being a rising pattern in the treatment condition, it looks just as it may be a continuation of a pattern that had just started during the study. This example of results emphatically proposes that the treatment was not liable for any adjustments in the DV. This is not to the degree that single-subject researchers usually plan to see.
The consequences of single-subject research can likewise be investigated utilizing measurable methodology. This is becoming progressively normal. There is a wide range of approaches, and single-subject researchers continue finding the most valuable to apply to specific RRB problem. One methodology matches what is regularly done in group research studies. The standard deviation and the mean of the participant’s response under each condition are recorded and studied. The figure below shows the respective responses per day for the participant. The research then applies inferential factual tests, for example, the t-test (Boyd, McDonough and Bodfish, 2011).
Figure 1: Responses per day (Created by Author)
Results
The most fundamental single-subject research design is the reverse design. It is also called the ABA plan. During the primary stage, an A pattern is set up for the DV. This is the degree of responding before any treatment is presented, and in this manner, the pattern stage is a sort of control condition. When consistent state responding is reached, stage B starts as the researcher presents the treatment. There might be a time of acclimation to the treatment during which the behaviour of the participant turns out to be increasingly factor and starts to decline or increase. Once more, the researcher holds up until that DV reaches at a consistent state with the goal that it is satisfied with the level of change observed.
At last, the analyst removes the treatment and again holds up until the DV gets to a consistent state. This fundamental reverse design can likewise be stretched out with the reintroduction of the treatment (ABAB), another return to the pattern (ABABA). The research by Hall and his associates was an ABAB reverse structure. The level of time he spent considering (the DV) was low during the principal pattern stage, expanded during the primary treatment stage until it levelled off, reducing during the subsequent independent stage, and again expanded during the subsequent treatment stage.
Discussion
This research represents the main endeavour to describe how the caregiver responds to restrictive, repetitive behaviours within the setting of a naturalistic independent meeting. Restrictive, repetitive behaviours are characterized as the outflow of dreary body characteristics, abrogating distractions with objects/portions of articles, tactile behaviours, and strict adherence to schedules and customs. While compulsory for a determination of autism spectrum disorder, restrictive, repetitive behaviours represent a complex arrangement of behaviours, and there is a considerable fluctuation between patients in their recurrence and force of articulation. An AB design is an interfered with a time-arrangement design applied to an individual participant. Review that one issue with that structure is that if the DV changes after the treatment are presented, it is not in every case clear that the treatment was answerable for the change. It is conceivable that something different changed at around a similar time and that this incidental variable is liable for the adjustment in the DV. Nonetheless, on the off chance that the DV changes with the presentation of the treatment and changes back with the expulsion of the treatment (expecting that the treatment does not make a lasting impact), it is much clearer that the introduction and evacuation of treatment is the reason. The reverse incredibly builds the internal legitimacy of the research.
Conclusion
Limitations and Future Direction
Our data represent the principal endeavour to evaluate responses to restrictive, repetitive behaviours in small patients with an autism spectrum disorder. One of the limitations is that we did not survey guardian data on autism spectrum disorder or intercession preparing before entering the research. From the data, we likewise come up short on comprehension of why guardians pick specific responses or non-responses. Future research ought to investigate how potential directing factors, for example, autism spectrum disorder seriousness, the caregiver responsiveness, and stress inform response type.
This research is one of not many to evaluate the direction of restrictive, repetitive behaviours in adults with mental imbalance. Generalization is limited because of the small sample size of the longitudinal research participants. Further, the period of this research may have been short to observe the change in restrictive, repetitive behaviours effectively. As noted over, the research reported change after some time in restrictive, repetitive behaviours used perceptions for a single week.
These data were constrained by the utilization of a single time point, which did not take into consideration research of progress after some time in both the caregiver’s response and patient restrictive, repetitive behaviours. While researcher ordered the responses as effective or ineffective, these evaluations just provide a discretionary momentary proportion of achievement. The research cannot assesss whether guardian responses to restrictive, repetitive behaviours reduce the future event of the behaviours both all through the model medication celecoxib and past the prompt setting of the association. While distinct, this research gives a way to study the effect of the caregiver interceded treatment approach on both patients restrictive, repetitive behaviours and responses to these behaviours.
Future Directions
To additionally comprehend the direction of restrictive, repetitive behaviours in patients with autism, it will be critical to see how these behaviours change in non-spectrum delayed development disorder patients, just as in ordinarily adult patients, over the preschool-age period. Future research utilizing this independent ought to look at these behaviours at customary interims over a more drawn out period in autism spectrum disorder and adults with non-spectrum developmental delays only as adult patients. Furthermore, it would be gainful to ask guardians how and for what good reason they ordinarily respond to these behaviours to provide further data concerning the unpredictability of the caregiver responses to restrictive, repetitive behaviours.
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