Application of delayed reinforcement procedures to the behavior of an elementary school child

Delayed reinforcement techniques were applied, in a multiple baseline experimental design, to modify the behavior of a mildly maladjusted sixth-grade child. The following behaviors were chosen for modification: face-touching, posture, and voice-loudness. Videotape recordings were made of the subject's behavior during mathematics and spelling periods each day. The recordings from the mathematics period was shown to her after school, and consequences for behavior exhibited during mathematics were dispensed during the after-school viewing. This delayed reinforcement procedure produced the desired behavior changes during the mathematics period. Tapes from the spelling period, which were taken without the child's knowledge, indicated that the behavior changes generalized to portions of the day other than the mathematics period.     

Modifications to basic functional analysis procedures in school settings: a selective review

This review describes applied behavioral research involving functional analyses conducted in public school settings. Functional analyses in public school settings often require added conditions. The modified conditions described herein include changes to experimental designs, antecedent changes that include task variation, tasks included, idiosyncratic variables, physiological conditions, and modified escape conditions. Finally, consequent modifications cover peer attention, tangibles, varied attention, and altered escape. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Impact of meeting procedures on meeting effectiveness

This study examined the relationships between meeting procedures and perceived meeting effectiveness. Sixty-seven subjects from a variety of organizations completed a questionnaire containing 20 meeting procedure items. Meeting effectiveness was measured by two items, goal attainment and decision satisfaction. Factor analysis of meeting procedure items revealed four major factors: open communication, task focus, systematic approach, and timeliness. Several meeting procedures were related to effectiveness. Results suggest that the following may be important processes leading to effective meetings: open communication, focus on tasks, thorough exploration of options, analysis of decision consequences, action planning, temporal integrity, agenda integrity, and leader impartiality.Portions of this paper were presented at the 1990 Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Atlanta GA. Ms. Nixon is now at Vanderbilt University Center for Mental Health Policy Research.     

Item selection procedures for item variables with a known factor structure

This paper discusses the item selection problem when the item responses follow a linear multiple factor model. Because of this restrictive assumption, not too unrealistic in situations such as mental testing, it is possible to select optimal sets of items without going through all possible combinations. A method proposed by Elfving to accomplish this is analyzed and then demonstrated through the use of two illustrations. The common and often used procedure of observing the magnitude of the correlation coefficient as an index in item selection is shown to have some merit in the single-factor case.Work performed under contract AF 41(657)-244 with the School of Aviation Medicine, Randolph AFB, Texas.     

Professional beliefs related to the practice of pediatric medicine and school psychology

This article proposes that pediatric medicine and school psychology are complementary fields. Five professional beliefs are reviewed: (a) the importance of classification, (b) a preference for evidence-based interventions, (c) an endorsement of advocacy in public policy, (d) the importance of working with the whole child including his/her parents, and (e) an assertion of team leadership. Each belief is discussed as a core value of pediatric medicine and considered for points of connection with school psychology. Some of these beliefs are widely shared by school psychologists, others are rejected because of historical and situational factors, and all warrant consideration in light of school psychology's continuing evolution.     

Reward, cost, and self-evaluation procedures for disruptive adolescents in a psychiatric hospital school

Sixteen pupils in a psychiatric hospital were assigned to two tutorial reading classes and balanced on six pupil characteristics and teacher preferences for the children. The effects of reward and cost procedures in a token program were assessed using both within- and between-subject comparisons in the following phases: (1) Baseline; (2) Token I, teacher evaluated and reinforced children for appropriate behavior; (3) Withdrawal of Tokens; (4) Token II, same as Token I; (5) Token III, same as Token I and II, but switched order of class meeting time; and (6) Self-Evaluation, students rated their own behavior and received prizes based on their rating, rather than the teacher's rating. The token program was markedly successful in reducing disruptive behavior and in increasing reading skills in both the Reward and Cost Classes, but there were no significant differences in the effects of the reward versus the cost procedure. While cost may be seen as a punishment procedure, there were no adverse side effects observed in the Cost Class at any time when the token program was in effect. The order of the classes was unrelated to the level of disruptive behavior or academic progress. The Self-Evaluative Phase, in which the students rated their own behavior, was included as an alternative to the abrupt withdrawal of tokens. In this phase, disruptive behavior remained at the previous low level.     

A survey os school psychologists'' use of behavior modification procedures

A national survey of behavior modification procedures used by school psychologists is reported. Usable questionnaires were received from 148 (49%) of 300 randomly selected members of the 1982 National Association of School Psychologists directory. Each respondent was asked to indicate the type of exposure, use, and inclusion of data collection procedures for each of 18 commonly used behavioral techniques. Conditional probabilities between type of exposure and use found strong relationships between supervision and subsequent use. The implications for the field of school psychology and future directions for training programs are discussed.     

Gender differences in aggressive behavior at admission to a psychiatric hospital

As aggressive behavior has a negative impact in general psychiatry, its influence specifically from a gender-related point of view in an in-patient population of a psychiatric clinic was assessed at the time of admission. A group of 521 successively admitted psychiatric in-patients was investigated at admission with the help of the "Social Dysfunction and Aggression Scale". A slightly higher frequency and intensity of "verbal aggressive behavior" was observed in males. Within the other categories of aggressive behavior ("tension", "physical violence to things", and "assaults"), however, the percentages and intensities of gender-related aggressive behavior did not differ significantly. Furthermore, under the covarying impact of various psychiatric diagnoses, the gender-related differences concerning the intensity of "verbal aggressive behavior" disappeared. When comparing male and female subgroups, it was notable that male schizophrenic patients were younger than female patients when displaying comparable risks of showing at least one kind of aggressive behavior. In addition, in the female subgroup, "self-injurious behavior" was more strongly correlated to the category "tension" than in the male subgroup. Although there are some methodological shortcomings, the present results show that there are small qualitative differences in gender-related aggressive behavior in addition to minimal quantitative differences in the frequency and intensity of "verbal aggressive behavior" at admission.     

Risk assessment of knowledge fusion in an innovation ecosystem based on a GA-BP neural network

The risk assessment of knowledge fusion in innovation ecosystems is directly related to these ecosystems’ success or failure. A back-propagation (BP) neural network optimized by a genetic algorithm (GA) is thus proposed to evaluate the risk of knowledge fusion in innovation ecosystems. First, an index system is constructed for evaluating the risk of knowledge fusion in innovation ecosystems, and data are collected by questionnaire for use as training data for the neural networks. To realize machine learning, 84 datasets were generated, of which 60 were used to train the network, and 24 were used to test the network in MATLAB (R2014b). Evaluation models were then constructed by the BP neural network and GA-BP neural network, and their accuracy was judged by comparing the evaluation value with the target value. The comparison shows that the GA-BP neural network has faster convergence speed and higher stability, can achieve the goal more often, and reduces the possibility of the BP neural network falling into a local optimum instead of reaching global optimization. The GA-BP neural network model for the knowledge fusion risk assessment of innovation ecosystems provides a new method for practice.