The purpose of this paper was to analyze the effects of presentations of assessmentrounds on preference stability during subsequent rounds of a multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment in preschool aged children with autism. We conducted a secondary data analysis based on videos recorded during the data collection phase of Sipila-Thomas et al. (2021) and calculated preference stability across consecutive rounds using Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients (Spearman’s ?) for 13 participants with autism. We defined preference stability as the Spearman’s ? critical r value meeting or exceeding .6 for consecutive round comparisons. Additionally, we present a new definition for patterns of stability and variability across rounds of a MSWO preference assessment. We observed patterns of preference stability for 10 participants and patterns of preference variability for 3 participants. The implications of these results are discussed.
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