Establishing the basic principles of effective intervention for difficult behavior in Angelman Syndrome

$78,497

What are some of the motivating and reinforcing events that might be used to help children and adults with AS change behaviors?  Funding from ASF to Dr. Oliver helps answer such questions. His work has been instrumental in identifying pro-social behaviors and other activities that can be used as rewards and reinforcements to improve problematic behaviors in AS, such as pinching and other types of aggressive or self injurious behaviors. Work from this grant was conducted in the United Kingdom under rigorous programs of behavioral design and control and has clearly pointed out how those with AS have unique behaviors different from those with other types of genetic syndromes associated with intellectual deficiency.