EVALUATION OF STIMULUS INTENSITY FADING ON REDUCTION OF RAPID EATING IN A CHILD WITH AUTISM AMBER L. VALENTINO,LINDA A. LEBLANC TRUMPET BEHAVIORAL HEALTH AND PAIGE B. RAETZ SOUTHWEST AUTISM RESEARCH AND RESOURCE CENTER This study assessed the effects of a vibrating pager on reduction of rapid eating. The study also evaluated two strategies for fading the pager, by intensity and by frequency. The pager was suc- cessful in decreasing the pace of eating to an appropriate level and the pager prompt was success- fully faded. Fading by frequency was ineffective in maintaining an appropriate pace of eating while intensity fading was successful. Key words: autism, pager prompts, rapid eating, stimulus intensity fading Vibrating pagers have been used to success- fully prompt individuals with autism to engage in socially significant behaviors such as social initiations (Shabani et al., 2002), language ini- tiation (Taylor & Levin, 1998), and to seek assistance when lost (Taylor, Hughes, Richard, Hoch, & Rodriquez-Coello, 2004). Recently, Anglesea, Hoch, and Taylor (2008) successfully used a vibrating pager to slow the pace of food consumption for three adolescents with autism who had a history of rapid eating. Pager prompts may be considered less intrusive and stigmatizing than traditional prompts (such as physical guidance by an instructor) because they can be discretely administered without an instructor in close proximity. Strategies for effectively fading pager prompts have not yet been developed in the research literature. As an example, Taylor and Levin (1998) evaluated whether a remote activated vibrating pager could be used to increase the social initiations of a child with autism. The pager prompt was effective in establishing the social initiation repertoire, but there were no attempts to fade the prompts. Shabani et al. (2002) replicated the beneficial effects of pager prompts for teaching social ini- tiations and attempted to fade the prompts by altering the schedule of prompt delivery (i.e., prompting less frequently). This fading strategy was ineffective—social initiations and responses did not maintain at the desired level once the pager was removed. It is possible that fading by frequency is ineffective because it is difficult to transfer stimulus control from the tactile prompt to no prompt. Fading by inten- sity may prove more effective because features of the antecedent stimulus (i.e., the vibration) can be altered more gradually with intensity and without any abrupt transfer. The current study replicated the procedures used by Anglesea et al. (2008) to slow the pace of food consumption with two extensions. The first extension was to examine whether the pager prompt could be successfully faded by altering the intensity of the vibration. The sec- ond was to compare the effects of fading by We thank Garth Girman, Leo Maxwell, and General Dynamics for their assistance. Paige Raetz is now with Southwest Autism Research and Resource Center. Linda LeBlanc is now with LeBlanc Behavioral Consulting. Address correspondence to Amber Valentino, TBH, 6475 Sierra Lane, Dublin, CA 94568. E-mail: avalentino@tbh.com doi: 10.1002/jaba.433 JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 2018, 51, 177–182 NUMBER 1(WINTER) © 2018 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 177