تجزیه و تحلیل بیشتر از اثرات تقویت مثبت بر روی حافظه کاری در کودکان مبتلا به اوتیسم

Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often exhibit impaired executive function (EF) performance, including difficulty with working memory (WM), in particular. While research has documented the existence of these deficits, surprisingly little research exists that evaluates potential treatment strategies for improving EF or WM. One exception is a study that used positive reinforcement to improve performance on a classical WM task, the counting span, resulting in both maintenance and generalization (Baltruschat et al., 2011). The current study is the second in a programmatic line of research on behavioral intervention for improving WM in children with autism. This study extended the use of the same procedure (positive reinforcement) to another task which is said to measure WM, a Complex Span, and included three additional children with autism. Results demonstrated significant improvements in performance for each participant, including maintenance and generalization to untrained stimuli and untrained responses. These results provide further evidence that behavioral intervention procedures may be useful for improving skills labeled as EF or WM in children with ASD.