Prefer is a tool to conduct preference assessments. Preference assessments are a set of procedures to find preferred items and activities for people who cannot reliably communicate their preferences. The identified items are often used in behavioral interventions for people with autism or other intellectual / developmental disabilities, but preference assessments can helpful for any professional who works this population.
This application was developed in order to make the assessments faster and easier, while comprehensively recording the results.
Prefer includes:
• Five preference assessments procedures:
o Free Operant (FO),
o Multiple Stimulus without Replacement (MSWO),
o Multiple Stimulus with Replacement (MS),
o Paired Stimulus (PS),
o Single Stimulus Engagement. (SS-E)
• A tool to assist the tester to choose a procedure.
• Easy prompts for the tester during the assessments.
• Graphical display of the results in the app.
• Option to e-mail the results of the preference assessment in a .csv format (i.e., compatible with most spreadsheet applications). Results include:
o Order of the items presented and selected on each trial (MSWO, MS, PS)
o Interval in which engagement was recorded (FO),
o Latency to select or interact with an item,
o Total time spent in the assessment.
Additionally, tutorials to conduct FO, MSWO and PS preference assessment are currently being developed and evaluated.
The application was developed as part of a doctoral study in Applied Behaviour Analysis, at the University of Manitoba and St. Amant Research Centre, and was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (FRN: KAL 104248).