Increasing compliance with wearing a medical device in children with autism

Health professionals often recommend the use of medical devices to assess the health, monitor the well-being, or improve the quality of life of their patients. Children with autism may present challenges in these situations as their sensory peculiarities may increase refusals to wear such devices. To address this issue, we systematically replicated prior research by examining the effects of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) to increase compliance with wearing a heart rate monitor in 2 children with autism. The intervention increased compliance to 100% for both participants when an edible reinforcer was delivered every 90 s. The results indicate that DRO does not require the implementation of extinction to increase compliance with wearing a medical device. More research is needed to examine whether the reinforcement schedule can be further thinned

In Pursuit Of General Behavioral Relations

Efforts to develop behavioral technologies from advances in basic research assume that results from studies with nonhuman subjects can, in some instances, be applied to human behavior. The behavioral principles likely to be most useful for application are those that represent robust general behavioral relations. Basic and applied research on behavioral momentum suggests that there is a general behavioral relation between the persistence of behavior and the rate of reinforcement obtained in a given situation. Understanding the factors that affect behavioral persistence may have important implications for applied behavior analysts that justify studies aimed at establishing the generality and limits of the functional relation between reinforcement rate and behavioral persistence. Strategies for establishing the generality of behavioral relations are reviewed, followed by a brief summary of the evidence for the generality of behavioral momentum

The motivating operation and negatively reinforced problem behavior. A systematic review.

The concept of motivational operations exerts an increasing influence on the understanding and assessment of problem behavior in people with intellectual and developmental disability. In this systematic review of 59 methodologically robust studies of the influence of motivational operations in negative reinforcement paradigms in this population, we identify themes related to situational and biological variables that have implications for assessment, intervention, and further research. There is now good evidence that motivational operations of differing origins influence negatively reinforced problem behavior, and that these might be subject to manipulation to facilitate favorable outcomes. There is also good evidence that some biological variables warrant consideration in assessment procedures as they predispose the person's behavior to be influenced by specific motivational operations. The implications for assessment and intervention are made explicit with reference to variables that are open to manipulation or that require further research and conceptualization within causal models

The effects of signals on responding during delayed reinforcement

Functional communication training (FCT) is a commonly used intervention for severe behavior disorders (e.g., Carr & Durand, 1985; Wacker et al., 1990). This treatment is designed to provide individuals with developmental disabilities with a repertoire of responses to attain reinforcement. However, caregivers may be unable or unwilling to provide immediate reinforcement when the treatment is implemented in the natural environment. Recent applied research on responding during delayed reinforcement suggests that responding may not persist when delays exceed 30 s (e.g., Fisher, Thompson, Hagopian, Bowman, & Krug, 2000; Hanley, Iwata, & Thompson, 2001). In contrast, results of basic research suggest that providing signals during delays may attenuate decrements in responding. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the extent to which signals may influence responding when the delays to reinforcement are gradually increased over time. In Experiment 1, two individuals were exposed to gradually increasing delays in the context of a multielement design. The presence of a signal did not produce higher response rates or greater response persistence than when a signal was not present. For a third participant, baseline response patterns suggested interaction effects would have influenced her behavior if she had been exposed to the comparison. In Experiment 2, all participants were exposed to signaled and unsignaled delay fading in the context of a reversal design. Results for 2 of 3 participants showed that responding persisted at lengthier reinforcement delay values when signals were used. These results suggested that, for 2 participants, (a) interaction effects influenced responding in Experiment 1, and that (b) the presence of signals facilitated response maintenance during delayed reinforcement

Treatment of Problem Behavior Multiply Maintained By Access to Tangible Items and Escape from Demands

Functional analysis is a behavioral assessment that identifies sources of operant reinforcement that maintain problem behavior. These assessments may identify single reinforcers (e.g., positive reinforcement in the form of attention) or multiple reinforcers (e.g., positive reinforcement in the form of attention and negative reinforcement in the form of escape from instructions) for the same behavior. In such cases, analysts will design interventions for each identified “function” but the sequencing of these interventions may impact their success at treating problem behavior. The current study evaluated the sequential treatment of problem behavior for a child whose functional analysis identified sensitivity to multiple reinforcers, similar to those described above. We first targeted problem behavior maintained by positive reinforcement in the form of access to tangible items using functional communication training (FCT). We subsequently targeted problem behavior maintained by negative reinforcement in the form of termination of instruction using Differential Reinforcement of Compliance (DRC). The implications for this intervention sequence are discussed

Effects of response-independent stimulus delivery and functional communication training

Two individuals with developmental delays with a history of problem behavior participated in this study. Its purpose was to examine the efficacy of combining two treatments demonstrated to reduce problem behavior: response-independent stimulus delivery and differential reinforcement of an alternative behavior. This study examined whether the response-independent delivery of an alternative preferred stimulus and differential reinforcement of manding resulted in increases in manding and suppression of problem behavior prior to and during the fading of the schedule of response-independent stimulus delivery. The study also examined the necessity of extinction to obtain suppression of problem behavior. The response-independent delivery of an alternative preferred stimulus and the implementation of functional communication training resulting in access to the maintaining reinforcer increased manding and decreased problem behavior. Results also suggest tentatively that extinction may be necessary to maintain response suppression during fading of the response-independent stimulus delivery schedule

Development of a Reinforcer Dimension Sensitivity Assessment to Inform Differential Reinforcement of Alternative BEhavior Without Extinction Procedures

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is the most commonly used procedure to treat destructive behavior maintained by social-positive reinforcement (Petscher, Rey, & Bailey, 2009). Several studies have demonstrated that placing destructive behavior on extinction (EXT) during DRA is critical for the reduction of destructive behavior (Fisher et al., 1993; Hagopian, Fisher, Sullivan, Acquisto, & LeBlanc, 1998). Despite the empirical evidence demonstrating the importance of using EXT during DRA, the use of EXT has several limitations. These limitations have resulted in the development of DRA without EXT treatments, during which practitioners manipulate dimensions of reinforcement to favor appropriate responding. The systematic identification of reinforcer dimensions to which an individual’s behavior is sensitive for the purpose of informing subsequent DRA without EXT treatments is still relatively new. The purpose of this study was twofold. In Study 1, we developed a reinforcer dimension sensitivity assessment to identify parametric values of reinforcer dimensions to which a participant’s behavior was sensitive. We conducted Study 2 with participants whose behavior demonstrated sensitivity during the assessment. In Study 2 we conducted a validation analysis during which we implemented two DRA without EXT procedures to assess if the participants allocated responding towards the response that produced the optimal reinforcer parameter to which he demonstrated sensitivity during the reinforcer dimension sensitivity assessment

Fixed-Time Schedule Effects on Participant Responding: An Evaluation Of Similar vs. Dissimilar Schedule Programs Using a Group Design Approach

We evaluated the effectiveness of fixed-time (FT) schedules of reinforcement at eliminating participant’s responding using a between-subjects group design. Participants experienced one of three conditions; a FT leaner schedule, a FT yoked schedule, or a FT denser schedule using a computerized experimental program. Dependent variables of interest are the total number of responses made during the fixed-time reinforcement phase and the latency until the participant met extinction or exit criteria

Champions, converts, doubters, and defectors: the impact of shifting perceptions on momentum for change

Maintaining momentum is a key influence on the ultimate success of large-scale change. In this paper, we develop theory to explain how stable vs. shifting change-supportive perceptions over time differentially influence the perceived momentum associated with goal-directed change (i.e., change-based momentum). We use cross-level polynomial regression and data obtained early and one year later within an organization implementing a lean manufacturing transformation to model changes in individual perceptions. Results suggest that momentum perceptions are higher for “Champions” (stable and high perceptions over time) as compared to “Converts” (increasing perceptions over time), but momentum perceptions are lower for “Defectors” (decreasing perceptions over time) as compared to “Doubters” (stable and low perceptions over time). We find that even if participants converge upon change-supportive perceptions later in the change process, early divergent perceptions influence subsequent momentum for the change. These findings highlight the important role of temporal shifts in perceptions for organizational change processes