Researching Abnormality 165
with autism (Lorimer et al., 2002). Gregg’s tantrums involved screaming, kicking,
and throwing things and were thought to be efforts to obtain attention. Before
a tantrum, Gregg would “rev up” by shouting commands for attention, such as
“Listen to me!”; these commands were referred to in the study as “interrupting
verbalizations.” When his parents or therapist ignored these commands (trying to
extinguish the behavior), Gregg went into a tantrum; the episodes of interrupting
verbalizations and tantrums would
last at least 45 minutes. These epi-
sodes occurred about fi ve times each
day, usually when his parents or
other adults weren’t paying atten-
tion to him or when he had to wait
to play with a particular object.
Social stories about adults talk-ing to other adults and about having
to wait were read to Gregg:
- each morning,
- at the beginning of each therapy
session,- right before the adult with him
was to withdraw attention from
him to talk to someone else, and- when he was about to be asked to
wait.Then, when his interrupting be-
haviors began, Gregg was asked to
look at his social storybook and fi g-
ure out what appropriate behaviors
would be.
Researchers collected data onthe frequency of Gregg’s target be-
haviors. In Gregg’s case, the treat-
ment was the use of social stories,
and there were two dependent
variables: the frequency of inter-
rupting verbalizations and the fre-
quency of temper tantrums. In the
A phase of the ABAB design, no sto-
ries were told; in the B phase, the
stories were told. Figure 5.3 illus-
trates the results: The social stories
were an effective means of reducing
Gregg’s interrupting verbalizations
and tantrums. Note that once the
stories were withdrawn (the second
A phase), the target behaviors in-
creased the subsequent day. More-
over, by the end of the second B
phase, Gregg’s interrupting verbal-
izations decreased even more than
they did in the fi rst B phase.
Single-participant experimentscan help clinicians who want to know
the extent to which an intervention
5.3 • Results From a Single-Participant Experiment This single-participant
experiment, using an ABAB design, shows the frequency of Gregg’s interrupting verbalizations
and tantrum behaviors over the course of the experiment.
Source: Lorimer, P.A., et al., 2002. Copyright 2002 by Sage Publications, Inc. For more information see the
Permissions section.Figure 5.353 l i l ii i
g53A phase:
Baseline
B phase:Social Factors
B phase:
Social storiesDay01213578101214151718202224A phase:
BaselineA phase:
BaselineB phase:
Social storiesB phase:
Social storiesFrequency of interrupting verbalizationsDay04321876513578101214151718202224Changes in interrupting verbalizations over timeChanges in tantrums over timeFrequency of tantrumsA phase:
Baseline