Quality Activities in Center-Based Programs for Adults with Autism. Moving from Nonmeaningful to Meaningful. A volume in Critical Specialties-Treating Autism&Behavioral Challenge

88 Pages·2016·1.5 MB·English

by  Dennis H. Reid and Marsha B. Parsons (Auth.)

Quality Activities in Center-Based
Programs for Adults with Autism
Critical Specialties in Treating Autism and
Other Behavioral Challenges
Series Editor
Jonathan Tarbox
Quality Activities
in Center-Based Programs
for Adults with Autism
Moving From Nonmeaningful
to Meaningful
Dennis H. Reid, Marsha B. Parsons
Carolina Behavior Analysis and Support Center, Morganton, NC
AMSTERDAM(cid:129)BOSTON(cid:129)HEIDELBERG(cid:129)LONDON
NEWYORK(cid:129)OXFORD(cid:129)PARIS(cid:129)SANDIEGO
SANFRANCISCO(cid:129)SINGAPORE(cid:129)SYDNEY(cid:129)TOKYO
AcademicPressisanimprintofElsevier
AcademicPressisanimprintofElsevier
125LondonWall,LondonEC2Y5AS,UnitedKingdom
525BStreet,Suite1800,SanDiego,CA92101-4495,UnitedStates
50HampshireStreet,5thFloor,Cambridge,MA02139,UnitedStates
TheBoulevard,LangfordLane,Kidlington,OxfordOX51GB,UnitedKingdom
Copyrightr2017ElsevierInc.Allrightsreserved.
Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproducedortransmittedinanyformorbyanymeans,
electronicormechanical,includingphotocopying,recording,oranyinformationstorageand
retrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublisher.Detailsonhowtoseek
permission,furtherinformationaboutthePublisher’spermissionspoliciesandourarrangements
withorganizationssuchastheCopyrightClearanceCenterandtheCopyrightLicensingAgency,
canbefoundatourwebsite:www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Thisbookandtheindividualcontributionscontainedinitareprotectedundercopyrightbythe
Publisher(otherthanasmaybenotedherein).
Notices
Knowledgeandbestpracticeinthisfieldareconstantlychanging.Asnewresearchand
experiencebroadenourunderstanding,changesinresearchmethodsorprofessionalpractices,
maybecomenecessary.
Practitionersandresearchersmustalwaysrelyontheirownexperienceandknowledgein
evaluatingandusinganyinformationormethodsdescribedherein.Inusingsuchinformationor
methodstheyshouldbemindfuloftheirownsafetyandthesafetyofothers,includingpartiesfor
whomtheyhaveaprofessionalresponsibility.
Tothefullestextentofthelaw,neitherthePublishernortheauthors,contributors,oreditors,
assumeanyliabilityforanyinjuryand/ordamagetopersonsorpropertyasamatterofproducts
liability,negligenceorotherwise,orfromanyuseoroperationofanymethods,products,
instructions,orideascontainedinthematerialherein.
BritishLibraryCataloguing-in-PublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
AcatalogrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress
ISBN:978-0-12-809409-9
ForInformationonallAcademicPresspublications
visitourwebsiteathttps://www.elsevier.com/
Publisher:NikkiLevy
AcquisitionEditor:EmilyEkle
EditorialProjectManager:BarbaraMakinster
ProductionProjectManager:MohanaNatarajan
Designer:AlanStudholme
TypesetbyMPSLimited,Chennai,India
BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Dennis Reid has over 40 years of experience as a clinician and
supervisor in educational, residential, and community support settings
for people with autism and other developmental disabilities, and has
consulted with human service agencies in the majority of states of the
United States as well as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. He has
published over 140 refereed journal articles and book chapters focusing
on applied behavior analysis and authored or coauthored 11 books. In
2007 he was awarded Fellowship status in the Association for
Behavior Analysis International and in 2006 received the American
Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
International Research Award. He is the founder and current director
of the Carolina Behavior Analysis and Support Center in Morganton,
North Carolina, United States. His company has employed people
with autism and other severe disabilities in a supported work capacity
for 21 years.
D.H. Reid, PhD, BCBA
BIOGRAPHY
Marsha B. Parsons has worked for 35 years teaching and directing
educational and vocational day services in schools and residential pro-
grams for individuals with intellectual disabilities and autism. She has
coauthored over 50 refereed journal articles as well as book chapters,
manuals, and 7 books and curricula aimed at enhancing the skills of
practitioners in the field of developmental and related disabilities. She
has received awards for her work from the North Carolina chapters of
both the Association for Behavior Analysis, and the American
Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. In 2015
she received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award from the Office
of the Governor of North Carolina in recognition of her service and
contributions. She currently works as a Senior Consultant with the
Carolina Behavior Analysis and Support Center.
M.B. Parsons, MA
Series Foreword: Critical Specialities in Treating
Autism and Other Behavioral Challenges
PURPOSE
The purpose of this series is to provide treatment manuals that address
topics of high importance to practitioners working with individuals
with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and other behavioral chal-
lenges. This series offers targeted books that focus on particular clini-
cal problems that have not been sufficiently covered in recent books
and manuals. This series includes books that directly address clinical
specialties that are simultaneously high prevalence (i.e., every practi-
tioner faces these problems at some point) and yet are also commonly
known to be a major challenge, for which most clinicians do not pos-
sess sufficient specialized training. The authors of individual books in
this series are top-tier experts in their respective specialties. The books
in this series will help solve the problems practitioners face by taking
the very best in practical knowledge from the leading experts in each
specialty and making it readily available in a consumable, practical
format. The overall goal of this series is to provide useful information
that clinicians can immediately put into practice.
The primary audience for this series is professionals who work in
treatment and education for individuals with ASD and other behav-
ioral challenges. These professionals include Board Certified Behavior
Analysts (BCBAs), Speech and Language Pathologists (SLPs),
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFTs), school psycholo-
gists, and special education teachers. Although not the primary audi-
ence for this series, parents and family members of individuals with
ASD will find the practical information contained in this series highly
useful.
Series Editor
Jonathan Tarbox, PhD, BCBA-D
FirstSteps for Kids
University of Southern California, CA, United States
xii SeriesForeword:CriticalSpecialitiesinTreatingAutismandOtherBehavioralChallenges
Dr. Jonathan Tarbox is the Program Director of the Masters of
Science in Applied Behavior Analysis program at the University of
Southern California, as well as Director of Research and a Regional
Clinic Director at FirstSteps for Kids. He is Associate Editor of the
journal Behavior Analysis in Practice and serves on the editorial boards
of five major scientific journals related to autism and behavior
analysis. He has published two books on autism treatment and well
over 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and chapters in scientific texts.
His research focuses on behavioral interventions for teaching complex
skills to individuals with autism. He is a frequent presenter at autism
and ABA conferences worldwide, and a regular guest on television and
radio.
11
CHAPTER
Historical Challenges and Needed
Improvements in Center-Based Services
for Adults With Autism
Concerns over the disability of autism have become increasingly
common among families, human service providers, and to a large
degree, society in general. Although reports vary on the number of
children born with autism each year, there is ample evidence that this
disability has been on the rise in recent history and is affecting an
increasing number of people. It is conservatively estimated that 1%
of the population has an autism spectrum disorder (Neumann,
Meyer, & Buchanan, 2011).
As autism has become increasingly prevalent there has been a
strong demand for evidence-based strategies to help individuals who
have this disability. Evidence-based strategies are developed through
scientific research that demonstrates their effectiveness, initially
through highly controlled investigations in experimental settings and
subsequently through systematic applications in places where people
typically live, work, and play. Evidence-based strategies are desired
because they have demonstrated effectiveness such that they are more
likely to have the desired outcome when used relative to interventions
that have no underlying scientific support. Reliance on evidence-based
strategies also reduces the likelihood that time will be wasted on
purported treatment procedures that have minimal or no probability
of success.
To date, the vast majority of evidence-based approaches for helping
people cope with and even overcome the challenges of autism are
derived from applied behavior analysis or ABA (Smith, McAdam, &
Napolitano, 2007). ABA is based on well-researched and established
principles of learning. Treatment interventions stemming from ABA’s
underlying science of human behavior have helped thousands of people
with autism learn skills to enhance their personal independence and
QualityActivitiesinCenter-BasedProgramsforAdultswithAutism.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-809409-9.00001-0
©2017ElsevierInc.Allrightsreserved.
2 QualityActivitiesinCenter-BasedProgramsforAdultswithAutism
overcome challenging behavior (Walsh, 2011). Many of these indivi-
duals have also benefitted from ABA to the point of displaying no sig-
nificant indications of the disability.
Although the benefits of ABA for individuals who have autism are
now well-established, the vast majority of ABA research and applica-
tion has involved children, with much less attention directed to adults
with autism. The focus within ABA on children has been due in large
part to the substantial body of evidence demonstrating that the most
beneficial outcomes in treating autism occur if intervention begins dur-
ing the first years of a child’s life. However, children with autism do
grow up, and many continue to have challenges in adulthood for
which specialized intervention is also necessary.
The needs of adults with autism present some special issues relative
to children who have this disability, just like adults in general have dif-
ferent issues than children. To illustrate, the primary support settings
outside of the family for children with autism are schools. Schools are
designed to prepare children, including those with autism, for their
future lives as adults so they will enjoy a productive and desirable
quality of life. In contrast, the purpose of support settings for adults
with autism is to maximize their current life quality (though prepara-
tion for the future in terms of continued learning is still relevant).
There is another issue that is relevant for adults with autism relative
to children. All children in the United States are legally entitled to a
free education. Children with special needs such as autism are also
entitled to a free and appropriate education as mandated by the federal
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (Chezan, Wolfe, &
Drasgow, 2015). The appropriate aspect of their education includes
obtaining evidence-based services specifically for a type of disability,
which in the case of autism has increasingly meant access to ABA. In
adulthood, however, there are fewer entitlements in general and fewer
still for receiving ABA services in particular. Correspondingly, the
number of adults with autism who receive specialized ABA services is
far less than children in most parts of the United States.
When students with autism finish school and are in need of contin-
ued supports and services, they typically enter the general adult service
system for people with developmental disabilities. Within the adult
service sector, agencies usually serve people with all kinds of