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Abstract

The behavior of an autistic/epileptic child was investigated through indoor, outdoor, and laboratory contexts to acquire a catalog of behavior for the autistic condition, which to date was only partially available, and to provide the parameters of the units composing it. The catalog obtained is composed of 111 units of behavior whose descriptions and quantitative characteristics are also given. The study has also dealt with the subject's global behavioral output and lexical aspects of her repertoire. The results appear to admit the conclusion that the child's behavior was operating under a tendency to return to a stereotypic output state from other, short-lasting states of behavior. This observation needs a subsequent confirmatory analysis of behavioral output states involved. Moreover, the search for the orderly type/token relationship, proposed in 1977 by Fagen and Goldman to hold for behavior, has led to equivocal results.

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Aspects of the Behavioral Repertoire of an Autistic/Epileptic Child

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