A Choice Analysis of Food Stealing Consequences in Children With Autism

A choice paradigm was used to examine food stealing across options with and without social consequences for 18 primarily autistic children. Ten children stole from the option lacking social consequences suggesting automatic reinforcement. Six children stole from both options suggesting multiple control. One child stole exclusively from the option that produced access to attention suggesting social reinforcement, and one child refrained from stealing. Overall, stealing maintained without social consequences for 16 of 17 (94.1%) children. In eight cases, stealing either failed to maintain or never occurred when the social contingency was examined in isolation. Our results suggest that children's food stealing may largely be automatically reinforced. Analysis and discussion of interpretational errors in concurrent operant and single schedule arrangements is provided, along with recommendations for error mitigation.