Multiple reinforcement contingencies to reduce aggression,self-injury and dysfunctional verbal behaviors in an adult who is sensory impaired

Differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) and differential reinforcement of low rates of responding (DRL) have been effective techniques in reducing maladaptive behaviors in therapeutic settings. Reported studies of these reinforcement-based procedures indicate that they are usually implemented in isolation, targeting only a single behavior or class of behaviors. In this study, multiple DRO and DRL contingencies were utilized concurrently in reducing two distinct classes of behaviors with a 26 year-old blind man with moderate retardation. One class of behaviors included socially inappropriate verbalizations, while the other included aggressive, self-injurious and environmentally destructive behaviors. Distinct contingencies were established according to the functions of the targeted behaviors and their severity and separate schedules of reinforcement were derived from baseline frequencies. Over a period of 20 months, the differential reinforcement interventions resulted in rapid reduction of behaviors in both classes to near-zero rates and frequencies were maintained at this low level while contingency schedules were systematically lengthened. Collateral effects are discussed including performance in functional academics and participation in community integration activities.     

Differential effects of omission contingencies on various components of Pavlovian appetitive conditioned responding in rats

Five experiments with rat subjects investigated the effects of omission and partial reinforcement contingencies on five individual behaviors evoked by visual and auditory conditioned stimuli paired with a food unconditioned stimulus. The effects of omission depended on the behavior on which that contingency was placed: One behavior was eliminated, one was unaffected, and three were reduced relative to the performance of yoked controls. Partial reinforcement resulted in lower frequencies of three behaviors and higher frequencies of two behaviors, compared with performance under consistent reinforcement. A partial reinforcement extinction effect was noted with one behavior but not with the others. These results are related to the possible role of instrumental conditioning contingencies in generating conditioned behavior in this appetitive conditioning preparation and to the independence of individual components of a complex conditioned response.     

Human behavioral momentum in a sample of older adults.

Behavioral momentum, the persistence of behavior under altered environmental contingencies, is derived from Newtonian physics and operant psychology. It has relevance to behavior analysis in terms of shaping strong behaviors and ensuring effective relapse prevention strategies in behavior modification and therapy. The authors investigated whether changing the operant schedule contingencies affects the responses of older humans to different stimuli when reinforcement density is systematically manipulated. Fifteen older adults participated in a computer study in which each of 2 keys in a baseline condition was associated with the same schedule of reinforcement and multiple variable intervals; the only difference was that 1 reinforcer was 10 times larger than the other. After 6 sessions, the authors changed the contingency schedule to either an extinction condition, a variable-time schedule, or a different variable-interval schedule, to assess how participants' responses persisted when reinforcement contingencies were systematically changed. The results were consistent with the predictions of behavioral momentum. The participants not only biased their responses in favor of the more densely reinforcing key, but when contingencies changed, they showed significantly biased responses. Results supported the conclusion that healthy older adults allocate their behaviors in a manner very sensitive to training stimuli conditions; consistent with the basic principles of behavioral momentum, they show a degree of resistance to change in their behaviors when the behavioral contingencies are altered.     

Competition between noncontingent and contingent reinforcement schedules during response acquisition

We examined the extent to which noncontingent reinforcement (NCR), when used as treatment to reduce problem behavior, might interfere with differential reinforcement contingencies designed to strengthen alternative behavior. After conducting a functional analysis to identify the reinforcers maintaining 2 participants' self-injurious behavior (SIB), we delivered those reinforcers under dense NCR schedules. We delivered the same reinforcers concurrently under differential-reinforcement-of-alternative-behavior (DRA) contingencies in an attempt to strengthen replacement behaviors (mands). Results showed that the NCR plus DRA intervention was associated with a decrease in SIB but little or no increase in appropriate mands. In a subsequent phase, when the NCR schedule was thinned while the DRA schedule remained unchanged, SIB remained low and mands increased. These results suggest that dense NCR schedules may alter establishing operations that result in not only suppression of problem behavior but also interference with the acquisition of appropriate behavior. Thus, the strengthening of socially appropriate behaviors as replacements for problem behavior during NCR interventions might best be achieved if the NCR schedule is first thinned.     

MULTIPLE FUNCTIONS OF PROBLEM BEHAVIORS: ASSESSMENT AND INTERVENTION

Three individuals with severe intellectual disabilities participated in separate analyses of problem behavior. In each case, a functional analysis was conducted under two parallel conditions. In one condition, self-injury or aggression resulted in escape from difficult tasks; in the second condition, the same problem behavior resulted in access to preferred items. Results indicated that the problem behaviors for each participant were maintained by both types of contingencies. Functional communication training was then delivered first in one condition and then in the second. After each participant was trained in a functionally equivalent mode of communication for one condition, levels of problem behavior decreased in that condition but not in the untrained condition. Only after separate communication forms were trained in both conditions was problem behavior reduced to clinically acceptable levels. These results document three examples of problem behaviors under multiple control, and emphasize the need to organize interventions that address different contingencies of reinforcement that maintain the same problem behavior.     

Instructing beginning teachers in reinforcement procedures which improve classroom control

Systematic reinforcement procedures were used to increase study behavior in the classrooms of three beginning teachers experiencing problems of classroom control. Classroom study rates were recorded during a baseline period. During subsequent experimental periods, the teachers changed one or more reinforcement contingencies (teacher attention, length of between-period break, a classroom game) to bring about increased study rates and concomitant reductions in disruptive behaviors. A brief reversal period, in which these contingencies were discontinued, again produced low rates of study. Reinstatement of the contingencies resulted once again in marked increases in study behaviors.     

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF INAPPROPRIATE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS IN STUDENTS WITH ASPERGER'S SYNDROME

We analyzed the inappropriate social interactions of 3 students with Asperger's syndrome whose behavior was maintained by social positive reinforcement. We tested whether inappropriate social behavior was sensitive to social positive reinforcement contingencies and whether such contingencies could be reversed to increase the probability of socially appropriate responding. Our results show that social positive reinforcers can be identified for inappropriate social interactions and that appropriate social behaviors can be sensitive to reinforcement contingency reversals.     

Toward a technology of generalization: The identification of natural contingencies of reinforcement

Applied behavior analysts have directed a growing effort towards the development of a technology for behavioral generalization and maintenance over the past decade. Among the list of potential generalization promoters thought to exist is the natural contingency of social reinforcement (i.e., a behavioral trap) for new behavior in its untrained form or setting, or over time. Although past researchers have noted a need to program for the generalization and maintenance of behavior change, the current understanding of behavioral traps precludes the use of these contingencies to support behavioral changes when interventions are not in operation. This article describes five forms of evidence useful for the identification and analysis of natural contingencies of reinforcement. Examples from the applied research literature are provided to illustrate the kinds of studies that would greatly enhance our knowledge of behavioral traps and improve our ability to understand and program the generalization of trained behaviors across diverse forms and settings, and over time.     

Using a token economy in a community-based residential program for disabled adults: An empirical evaluation leads to program modification

The effects of an existing token reinforcement program upon the acquisition and maintenance of independent living skills of 12 disabled adults in two halfway houses were investigated. Tokens (points) were used to purchase advancement up a step/level system, pay daily “rent,” and purchase curfew extensions. Tokens were effective in maintaining independent living skill behaviors. However, hearing clients showed a decrease in independent living skill behaviors over the course of the program, while hearing impaired clients showed no change. This paradoxical finding appeared to be the result of inadvertant program contingencies that allowed a decrease in desired behaviors as subjects advanced to higher steps. The authors discuss how the program would be modified to increase behaviors associated with independent living skills.     

Cooperative learning in the classroom: Contingencies,group interactions,and students with special needs

Cooperative learning activities play a significant role in the schools. As such, these activities should be of interest to applied behavior analysts concerned with educational interventions. A number of factors appear to contribute to the impact of cooperative group activities, including the level of individual accountability, group contingencies, and the types of interactive behaviors in which students engage during group activities. This paper reviews current research on cooperative learning, focusing on the relationships between student behaviors, contingencies of reinforcement and group outcomes. The social and academic skills with which students enter cooperative learning activities, and the impact of these skills on students' behavior within groups and on the social and academic outcomes of groups is considered. Problems associated with the failure of cooperative groups are also addressed. The research potentials for applied behavior analysts are discussed.     

The noneffects of contingent reinforcement for attending behavior on work accomplished

Past studies have shown that disruptive behavior can be eliminated and attending behavior accelerated in an academic setting. The relationship between these behaviors and academic performance is not well understood. The effects of behavioral and performance contingencies on classroom behavior and on academic performance were investigated. The subjects, third-grade students from an inner city elementary school, were exposed to a series of conditions including baseline, behavior contingencies, performance contingencies, and a mix of behavior and performance contingencies using a reversal design. The students worked 100 randomly selected mathematics problems for 20 minutes each day during each period. Behavioral contingencies improved attending and decreased disruptions but did not improve performance. Performance contingencies increased per cent correct problems but attending declined and disruptions increased. The combined contingencies increased both performance and attending. The experiment was replicated with another class of children varying the sequence of conditions and the amount of token reinforcement that could be earned. The findings emphasized the importance of designing specific contingencies for specific target behaviors. Behavioral contingencies did not have the positive effect on performance often implied, nor were performance contingencies alone able to maintain acceptable classroom behavior.     

The impact of behavior-specific and behavior-nonspecific reinforcement on child compliance to mother directives

Theories of child socialization differ with regard to the influence they attribute to behavior-specific reinforcement contingencies versus behavior-nonspecific reinforcement contingencies (i.e. social responsiveness). The present research investigated, at a within-individual level, the relationship between both types of reinforcement and child compliance with maternal directives. Behavior-specific reinforcement was defined as the history of reinforcement obtained by children for prior episodes of compliance and noncompliance to mother directives. Behavior-nonspecific reinforcement was defined as the history of reinforcement obtained by children for prosocial and aversive behaviors unrelated to mother directives. It was hypothesized that both reinforcement processes would be related to child responses to subsequent mother directives. The findings support these hypotheses. The discussion addresses caretaker social responsiveness as an intervention target of behavioral family therapy.     

Contingency contracting with school problems

Contingency contracting procedures used in managing problems with school-age children involved analyzing teacher and/or parental reports of behavior problem situations, isolating the most probable contingencies then in effect, the range of reinforcers presently available, and the ways in which they were obtained. The authors prepared written contracts delineating remediative changes in reinforcement contingencies. These contracts specified ways in which the child could obtain existing individualized reinforcers contingent upon approximations to desired appropriate behaviors chosen as incompatible with the referral problem behaviors. Contract procedures were administered by the natural contingency managers, parents and/or teachers, who kept daily records of contracted behaviors and reinforcers. These records were sent to the authors and provided feedback on the progress of the case. Initial results of this procedure have been sufficiently encouraging to warrant recommending an experimental analysis of contingency contracting as a clinical method.     

Training elementary aged peer behavior managers to control small group programmed mathematics

The effects of a training procedure and two maintenance contingencies on consequence-dispensing behavior were investigated. Four peer behavior managers were trained to supervise small groups of subjects (four to six per group) working in programmed math materials and were compared with a teacher skilled in the use of social and point reinforcement and response cost. Manager training was differentially effective in accelerating manager's rates of appropriate social and point dispensing. Having manager reinforcement contingent upon manager consequence-dispensing resulted in moderately higher rates of appropriate social and point dispensing for three of four subjects than did having manager reinforcement contingent upon group study behavior. Two managers exposed to the group performance contingency before the manager performance contingency increased inappropriate social and point-dispensing behaviors to pretraining baseline levels. Subsequent change to the manager performance contingency was effective in reducing the inappropriate dispensing behavior of only one of the two managers.     

Choice as a function of local versus molar reinforcement contingencies.

Rats were trained on a discrete-trial probability learning task. In Experiment 1, the molar reinforcement probabilities for the two response alternatives were equal, and the local contingencies of reinforcement differentially reinforced a win-stay, lose-shift response pattern. The win-stay portion was learned substantially more easily and appeared from the outset of training, suggesting that its occurrence did not depend upon discrimination of the local contingencies but rather only upon simple strengthening effects of individual reinforcements. Control by both types of local contingencies decreased with increases in the intertrial interval, although some control remained with intertrial intervals as long as 30 s. In Experiment 2, the local contingencies always favored win-shift and lose-shift response patterns but were asymmetrical for the two responses, causing the molar reinforcement rates for the two responses to differ. Some learning of the alternation pattern occurred with short intertrial intervals, although win-stay behavior occurred for some subjects. The local reinforcement contingencies were discriminated poorly with longer intertrial intervals. In the absence of control by the local contingencies, choice proportion was determined by the molar contingencies, as indicated by high exponent values for the generalized matching law with long intertrial intervals, and lower values with short intertrial intervals. The results show that when molar contingencies of reinforcement and local contingencies are in opposition, both may have independent roles. Control by molar contingencies cannot generally be explained by local contingencies.     

Response acquisition under direct and indirect contingencies of reinforcement

We compared the effects of direct and indirect reinforcement contingencies on the performance of 6 individuals with profound developmental disabilities. Under both contingencies, completion of identical tasks (opening one of several types of containers) produced access to identical reinforcers. Under the direct contingency, the reinforcer was placed inside the container to be opened; under the indirect contingency, the therapist held the reinforcer and delivered it to the participant upon task completion. One participant immediately performed the task at 100% accuracy under both contingencies. Three participants showed either more immediate or larger improvements in performance under the direct contingency. The remaining 2 participants showed improved performance only under the direct reinforcement contingency. Data taken on the occurrence of "irrelevant" behaviors under the indirect contingency (e.g., reaching for the reinforcer instead of performing the task) provided some evidence that these behaviors may have interfered with task performance and that their occurrence was a function of differential stimulus control.     

An evaluation of differential reinforcement of other behavior,differential reinforcement of incompatible behavior,and restitution for the management of aggressive behaviors

A 46 year old institutionalized retarded woman was referred for treatment because of frequent verbal abuse and physically aggressive behaviors. A multicomponent behavioral intervention consisting of differential reinforcement of other behaviors, differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors, and restitution was implemented. A sequential withdrawal design was used in order to evaluate the effects of components of the original intervention, and to provide a measure of response maintenance. Results indicated a marked decrease in verbal abuse and elimination of physical aggression. Verbal abuse recurred when the restitution procedure was withdrawn. The relative efficacy of the different interventions is discussed with respect to the behavioral management of aggression. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Noncontingent reinforcement, alternative reinforcement, and the matching law: a laboratory demonstration

Basic researchers, but not most applied researchers, have assumed that the behavior-decelerating effects of noncontingent reinforcement result at least partly from adventitious reinforcement of competing behaviors. The literature contains only sketchy evidence of these effects because few noncontingent reinforcement studies measure alternative behaviors. A laboratory model is presented in which concurrent schedules of contingent reinforcement were used to establish a "target" and an "alternative" behavior. Imposing noncontingent reinforcement decreased target behavior rates and increased alternative behavior rates, outcomes that were well described by the standard quantitative account of alternative reinforcement, the generalized matching law. These results suggest that adventitious reinforcement of alternative behaviors can occur during noncontingent reinforcement interventions, although the range of conditions under which this occurs remains to be determined in future studies. As an adjunct to applied studies, laboratory models permit easy measurement of alternative behaviors and parametric manipulations needed to answer many research questions.     

Parametric manipulation of interresponse-time contingency independent of reinforcement rate

Pecking of pigeons was reinforced under a modified interval-percentile procedure that allowed independent manipulation of overall reinforcement rate and the degree to which reinforcement depended on interresponse-time duration. Increasing the contingency, as measured by the phi coefficient, between reinforcement and long interresponse times while controlling the overall rate of reinforcement systematically increased the frequency of those interresponse times and decreased response rate under both of the reinforcement rates studied. Increasing reinforcement rate also generally increased response rate, particularly under weaker interresponse-time contingencies. Random-interval schedules with comparable reinforcement rates generated response rates and interresponse-time distributions similar to those obtained with moderate-to-high interresponse-time reinforcement contingencies. These results suggest that interresponse-time reinforcement contingencies inherent in random-interval and constant-probability variable-interval schedules exercise substantial control over responding independent of overall reinforcement rate effects. The interresponse-time reinforcement contingencies inherent in these schedules may actually mask the effects of overall reinforcement rate; thus differences in response rate as a function of reinforcement rate when interresponse-time reinforcement is eliminated may be underestimated.     

Choice for reinforced behavioral variability in children with autism spectrum disorder

Although individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) tend to behave repetitively, certain reinforcement contingencies (e.g., lag schedules) can be used to increase behavioral variability. In a lag schedule, reinforcers only follow responses that differ from recent responses. The present study was designed to promote variable play behavior in preschoolers with ASD interacting with playsets and figurines and to assess preference for variability and repetition contingencies. Data have shown a preference for variability in pigeons and college students, but this effect has not been explored in clinical populations. In this experiment, preschoolers with ASD were taught to discriminate between variability and repetition contingencies. Only play behaviors that met a lag schedule were reinforced in the presence of one color, and only repetitive behaviors were reinforced in the presence of another. After differential performance was established, participants experienced a concurrent chains schedule. Participants chose between the colors taught in training and then completed a play session with the selected contingency. One participant selected variability and repetition equally. The other participants showed a slight preference for variability. These results indicate that some individuals with ASD may play repetitively, not because they prefer repetition, but because they require additional teaching to play variably.