Further Examination of the Relationship Between Stimulus Equivalence and Psychological Flexibility

Research surrounding psychological flexibility has begun to develop in recent decades. It has proven to be an important construct within the examination of third wave behavioral therapies and Relational Frame Theory. Though defined within the context of relational responding, there is little research directly assessing the relationship of psychological flexibility to measures of equivalence. The current study compared the scores of the PEAK Equivalence Pre-Assessment (to measure equivalence) and the scores from the AFQ-Y (to measure psychological inflexibility) to examine this relationship in school-aged children with ASD. The relationship between the total scores of the PEAK assessment and the scores of the AFQ-Y was examined by using a Pearson correlation. Results showed a statistically significant negative correlation (r = -.63, p\u3c.05) between these measures. A Pearson correlation was then also used to examine the correlations among the PEAK subtests. As anticipated, the results showed a significant positive correlation among each of the components of equivalence providing additional information regarding the relationship among measured components of equivalence. These findings support recent research, and can help guide future educational and therapeutic interventions. Keywords: Autism (ASD), equivalence, PEAK, psychological flexibilit