Deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships, ranging, for example, from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit various social contexts to difficulties in sharing imaginative play or in making friends to absence of interest in peers.Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, ranging, for example, from poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication to abnormalities in eye contact and body language or deficits in understanding and use of gestures to a total lack of facial expressions and nonverbal communication.Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.Persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts, as manifested by the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive, see text): The DSM-5 is now the standard reference that healthcare providers use to diagnose mental and behavioral conditions, including autism.īy special permission of the American Psychiatric Association, you can read the full-text of the new diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder and the related diagnosis of social communication disorder below.Īlso see: Answers to frequently asked questions about DSM-5 criteria for autism DSM-5 Autism Diagnostic CriteriaĪ. Thus, the Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) aims to improve behaviors, through the development of a well-adapted curriculum that allows intervention, with a substitutive view and micromanagement based on behavioral techniques such as: modeling, sensory integration, imitation, scripts and speech stimulation with differential reinforcement of other behavior, alternative behavior or incompatible behavior, both to guarantee the physical integrity of the learner and to ensure their self-regulation and learning.In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association released the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). The search for sensory regulation, relief from everyday anxiety and the reduction of stress and irritability is also a neurotypical behavior, differing in its domain and, consequently, in its frequency, duration and intensity. Contrary to popular belief, this behavior is very common. Going beyond a merely topographical analysis, the function of these movements is related to self-organization, reassurance (calmness), sensorial and sensations search and a multimodality of reinforcers. Stereotypies are, therefore, motor behaviors with a repetitive character, apparently impulsive and without reason (B criteria), and, generally, they are rhythmic of the head, hands or body, with contingent absence of apparently adaptive function (DSM 5/2013 ). Furthermore, it is a symptomatic hypo- or hyper-reactive behavior (diagnostic criterion B4), with occasional visual fascination with lights or movement. In the DSM-5 (2013), Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition, the diagnostic criterion B1, of Autism Spectrum Disorder (F84.00/299.00), has its descriptor consisting of motor movements, use of objects of inappropriate form, stereotyped or repetitive speech, echolalia and idiosyncratic phrases, and simple motor stereotypy, aligning toys or rotating objects. For Cantavella (1992), stereotypy is, in essence, a compulsive defense. In the case of Autism, the hyperexcitation of the brain results in an excess of stimuli corresponding, consequently, to the need to discharge tension through the motor escape called stereotypes or repetitive and ritualized movements. It was from Skinner's studies (1957 ) that the term operant conditioning began to be used with reference to environmental events, because functional relationships occur both between adaptive and maladaptive behaviors.
Information gathering as a process is recorded in the functional assessment. Functioning problems have a functional relationship with antecedents and their consequences. These operant behaviors are positively or negatively reinforced, increasing the probability of their occurrence in the future.
It is from Frederic Burrhus Skinner's studies on behaviorism that we obtain the principles to employ this conditioning. Modification of undesirable behavior or positive reinforcement of desirable behavior is achieved by differential reinforcement in operant conditioning.