DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

• Financial
• We (Janice C. Smith, Judith L Page & Robert
Marshall) have no financial relationships to
disclose.
• Nonfinancial
• Dr. Page is a colleague of Dr. Robert Marshall
who is an author of the RAPS.
• Janice Smith is one of Dr. Marshall’s students.
• Dr. Marshall is a co-author of the RAPS.

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 Clinical Measure
of Problem Solving in
Children with and without
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Janice Carter Smith M.S. CCC/SLP;
Doctoral Candidate
Judith L. Page Ph.D.
Robert C. Marshall Ph.D.

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 Learner Outcomes
• Instructional Level: Intermediate
• Interest Groups: Peds SLP; Clinical Research;
Autism
• Before leaving, participants will be able to:
– Identify three types of questions used to solve a problem
– Use a RAPS board to solve a problem
– Name three problem solving strategies used by children
with autism
– Identify 2-3 differences in RAPS performance between
the autism group and the typically developing group

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 Our Problem Solving Paradigm
• Problem Solving has three interconnected and
overlapping elements:
– reasoning, planning, and verbal problem solving
• The process of solving a problem requires
cognitive processing, but not necessarily verbal
production.
• However, the ability to gather useful information
through effective question asking is crucial to solve
a problem appropriately.

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 Rationale
• Research findings support the idea that individuals
with autism have difficulty solving different types
of problems.
• Children with autism may have difficulty
connecting spoken or written words with mental
pictures (Grandin, 2009).
• For this group, the ability to seek clarification
through verbalization becomes even more crucial
to the problem solving process.

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Rapid Assessment of Problem Solving
• 9 problem-solving boards
• 32 pictures of common items per board
• one category of 8, two categories of 6, and three
categories of 4 pictures
• 16 pics in color; 16 in b/w
• Scores are calculated for:
1) Integration Planning
2) Percentage of constraint questions (not guesses)
3) Mean question asking efficiency

(Marshall, Karow, Morelli, Iden, & Dixon, 2003)

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Measures
 Question Types - Constraints
• Novel - crosses categories
– Is it in color? Is it living? Is it on the top half?
• Category Limited - targets only one category on
the board
– Is it a food? Do you wear it?
• Narrowing - narrows the field once a category has
been targeted
– (animals) Does it live in the zoo?
• Inefficient Constraint - a constraint question
that does not narrow the field
– (instruments) Can you play it?

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 Question Types - Guesses
• Frank Guess- targets only one picture
– Is it the cake?
• Pseudo-constraint-sounds
like a constraint but only targets
one picture
– Does it move on tracks?

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 The Study
• The Rapid Assessment of Problem Solving
(RAPS) was used to evaluate 17 children
with autism and 17 matched typically
developing children (ages 7:0 -15:3).
• Initial results yield preliminary evidentiary
support for valid use of the RAPS with
children.

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 Inclusion Criteria
• Autism Sample
1) Between the ages of 7-17:11
2) A reported diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder
3) Demonstrated ability to independently answer and ask
yes/no questions
• Typically Developing Sample
1) Between the ages of 7-17:11
2) No known diagnoses that affect learning
3) Demonstrated ability to independently verbally answer
and ask yes/no questions

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 Final Sample
• 17 Children with Autism ages 7:0-15:3
– Recruited 25 originally
• 5 consenting families had scheduling conflicts
• 3 children were eventually excluded because they
did not meet inclusion criteria
• 17 Typically Developing Children
ages 7:10-15:00
• Sample selected from an existing database of 538
children and matched with the autism sample for
age and gender.

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 Analysis
• Demographics
• counts and percentages
• Scores from the RAPS
– n, mean, standard deviation, minimum,
maximum

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 Results
• Demographics

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 Age
• Demographics

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 Results
• Scores

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 Strategy Type

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 Integration Planning

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 Integration Planning

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 Total Questions Asked

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 Results
• More Scores from the RAPS

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 Question Asking Efficiency

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 Question Asking Efficiency

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 Analysis2
• Visual examination of data
Similarities, patterns & anomalies/
outliers
• Visual examination of paper protocols &
observation notes
• Themes, commonalities & atypicalities

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 Results—Qualitative (TD group)
• TD subjects tended toward category limited
questions.
• They chose Category or Mixed strategies for their
first questions.
• This group asked fewer, but more efficient
questions overall.
• When compared with the autism group’s data, the
TD results reflect patterns that are evident in the
autism literature regarding problem solving.

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 Results—Qualitative (ASD group)
• Some subjects with autism used typical categories
to solve the problem
– Colors (is it red, blue, yellow), animals, foods
• Others utilized novel questions with very specific
details
– Is it in the species kingdom?
– Does it begin with the letter B, C, D…etc?
• Others used elaborate but inefficient strategies
– Is it an even/odd number up (meaning 2nd from the bottom)
• Lastly, a few subjects used novel efficient strategies
– Is it in the top half? Is it in column A?

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 Implications
• Preliminary data provide initial evidence
for validly using the RAPS with both child
groups
– In this sample the RAPS scores for the autism
group were significantly different
from the scores of the TD group.
• We will know more once the
normative data is analyzed.

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 Moving Forward
Next Step
• Analyze the RAPS normative data (N=538)
for children 7-17:11
And After That
• Increase the autism sample size
• Control for representativeness of the sample
(age, gender, ability level, etc.)

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 • Special Thanks are extended to:
– The children who participated in this pilot
project and their parents
– Larissa Lumbrix & Julana Smith(GAs)
– Colleagues
– Mentors

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 Janice Carter Smith
M.S. CCC-SLP
janice.smith@wku.edu
270-745-5875

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