Research Symposium Program - Individual Details

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5th annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, April 17, 2025

Deina Escribano C - 5 R - 7

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BIO

My name is Deina (Dee-na) and I am currently a first-year graduate student in the applied behavior analysis program. While in the program, I am working on various clinical applications of behavioral analytic principles at the Early Childhood Autism Program here in Panama City. In the future, I plan to explore the use of pairing procedures to promote more quality parent-child interactions.

Promoting Environmental Awareness; Out-of-Context Stimuli Receptive ID

Authors: Deina Escribano, Dakota Januchowski, M.S., BCBA
Student Major: Psychology--Applied Behavior Analysis
Mentor: Dakota Januchowski, M.S., BCBA
Mentor's Department: Psychology
Mentor's College: Florida State University
Co-Presenters:

Abstract

This behavior intervention program aimed to improve environmental attending skills in an eight-year-old male diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) through Discrete Trial Training (DTT). The program targeted the identification of out-of-context stimuli within visual scenes to support the client’s engagement with-and-responding to his immediate environment. Using structured teaching methods, the client was presented with visual stimuli containing multiple distractors and prompted to identify the item that did not belong. Mastery was defined as 90% independent responding across three consecutive sessions with multiple clinicians. Over the course of implementation, the client demonstrated significant progress, probing out of two targets on the first day and mastering/probing out of seven additional targets by December 2024. These improvements were accompanied by increased engagement in social interactions related to environmental awareness. Despite temporary disruptions due to illness and holiday closures, the program demonstrated its effectiveness in enhancing the client’s attending skills, with potential for further generalization to naturalistic settings. However, as of January 2025, the client has demonstrated complete mastery of all 14-target scenes in this program.

Keywords: receptive identification, attending skills, discrimination skills