SPCE 680: Introduction to Persons with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Peer-reviewed Article Analysis 3 requires you to find an article which meets specific criteria:

• It must include discussion of one of the accepted naturalistic interventions (see your assignment).
• It must focus on people with one or more neurodivergent conditions.
• You must find the article using either APA PsycInfo or MEDLINE, both of which are library databases available through the Ball State Libraries, and which are linked below.
• It must be a peer-reviewed article.
• The article must be published in a journal that is not predatory.  Note that APA PsycInfo and MEDLINE do not include predatory journals, so that makes your process easier.
• It must be a research-based article using single-case research design.
• You have to show with a screenshot that you got it through the Ball State Libraries.

Either APA PsycInfo or MEDLINE are acceptable databases to use for this assignment.

Here is a sample of how you could enter your search terms:

To search more efficiently, you might choose to search for several neurodivergent conditions at the same time, putting OR between each one. This tells the database to search for any of those terms and broadens your search results.  For example:

On the results page in APA PsycInfo and MEDLINE, a couple simple limiters under the search bar enable you to narrow your results to peer-reviewed academic journal articles, as shown here:

To make sure you choose an article reporting on research carried out with single case research design, you'll need to read the abstract of the article carefully.

• Look for both the phrase single case and also single subject, which is synonymous.
• Importantly, there are many kinds of single case study designs, including reversal design, withdrawal design, ABAB design, and multiple baseline design.  An abstract which describes a study with any of those terms does in fact use single case study design.

Here's an example of an abstract for an article which used single case research design.  Note that it doesn't say "single case," but instead mentions a specific type of single case research design; namely, multiple baseline design.

To narrow your search results to include only single case research, you can add a search box with a list of of all the types of single case research designs separated by OR, as described on Find Single Subject Research Articles. 

Simply copy and paste the list of single case study designs (as shown here) into the new search box, and then choose "Abstract - AB" in the drop-down menu on the right.

(The long list gets cut-off in this screenshot.)

You still need to read your abstracts carefully, even if you use this method.

There are several ways in APA PsycInfo and MEDLINE that you may be able to show that you're getting access through Ball State.

If you have LibKey Nomad downloaded to your browser, then when you view the article you may see this icon:

Or you may be brought to a page like this:

Or you may have to take a screenshot showing "Ball State University" in the upper left-hand corner of the database, as shown here:

For helping finding the full text of an article you're interested in, look for an "Access" button.

For more information, visit the Find the Full Text page.