Evaluating preference for familiar and novel stimuli across a large group of children with autism

This study examined relative preference for familiar and novel stimuli for 31 children with autism. Preference surveys, completed by 39 staff members, identified high and low preference familiar stimuli for each participant. Novel stimuli were selected by experimenters and included items that were not reported on a preference survey for that child. Subsequently, two paired-stimulus preference assessments were conducted comparing staff-reported high preference stimuli to (1) staff-reported low preference stimuli and (2) experimenter-selected novel stimuli. Results indicated that 27 of 31 participants (87%) frequently selected stimuli that were reportedly less preferred or novel. The inclusion of a wide array of familiar and novel stimuli may increase the number of preferred stimuli identified for use within behavioral interventions for children with autism.