An evaluation of the value of choice-making opportunities in single-operant arrangements: simple fixed- and progressive-ratio schedules

The current study compared the effects of choice and no-choice reinforcement conditions on the task responding of 3 children with autism across 2 single-operant paradigm reinforcer assessments. The first assessment employed simple fixed-ratio (FR) schedules; the second used progressive-ratio (PR) schedules. The latter assessment identified the differential strength of choice-making conditions in promoting task responding relative to no-choice conditions for 2 participants; no differential findings were obtained during the FR assessment.     

Teaching children with autism to request help with difficult tasks

We taught three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder to request help using an interrupted chain procedure during which we manipulated task materials such that the child was either incapable or capable of independently completing a link of a behavior chain. We initially observed undesirable generalization of requests for help during capable trials when teaching was introduced during incapable trials for two participants and to a lesser extent for the third participant. However, with repeated exposure to differential prompting and reinforcement across incapable and capable trials, differential responding was observed across EO‐present and EO‐absent trials for all three participants during both teaching sets and one generalization set that was never exposed to teaching procedures. These findings suggest that it is important to consider the antecedent conditions under which the response should occur when teaching children to request help.     

EFFECTS OF HIGH-PROBABILITY REQUESTS ON THE ACQUISITION AND GENERALIZATION OF RESPONSES TO REQUESTS IN YOUNG CHILDREN WITH BEHAVIOR DISORDERS

The failure to respond to requests in young children often is maintained by the reactions of the adults that encounter this behavior. This failure to respond to requests has been identified as a primary reason for the children's exclusion from community, social, and instructional opportunities. Numerous interventions that target the failure to respond have consisted of punishment and reinforcement procedures. More recently, antecedent interventions have focused on changing the context in which a request is delivered. In the current study, high-probability requests were provided as an antecedent to delivering a low-probability request. The requests were delivered by multiple trainers in an attempt to produce generalized appropriate responding to adults who did not use the high-probability sequence. Results showed an immediate increase in appropriate responding in 2 children when the intervention was delivered. In addition, when the intervention was implemented by more than one adult, spontaneous increases in responding also were observed toward adults who had never implemented the request sequence. Improvements in responding to requests were maintained after the intervention was discontinued.     

Evaluating the influence of postsession reinforcement on choice of reinforcers

Factors that influence reinforcer choice have been examined in a number of applied studies (e.g., Neef, Mace, Shea, & Shade, 1992; Shore, Iwata, DeLeon, Kahng, & Smith, 1997; Tustin, 1994). However, no applied studies have evaluated the effects of postsession reinforcement on choice between concurrently available reinforcers, even though basic findings indicate that this is an important factor to consider (Hursh, 1978; Zeiler, 1999). In this bridge investigation, we evaluated the influence of postsession reinforcement on choice of two food items when task responding was reinforced on progressive-ratio schedules. Participants were 3 children who had been diagnosed with developmental disabilities. Results indicated that response allocation shifted from one food item to the other food item under thinner schedules of reinforcement when no postsession reinforcement was provided. These findings suggest that the efficacy of instructional programs or treatments for problem behavior may be improved by restricting reinforcers outside treatment sessions.     

Effects of antecedent variables on disruptive behavior and accurate responding in young children in outpatient settings

The effects of manipulations of task variables on inaccurate responding and disruption were investigated with 3 children who engaged in noncompliance. With 2 children in an outpatient clinic, task directives were first manipulated to identify directives that guided accurate responding; then, additional dimensions of the task were manipulated to evaluate their influence on disruptive behavior. With a 3rd child, similar procedures were employed at school. Results showed one-step directives set the occasion for accurate responding and that other dimensions of the task (e.g., preference) functioned as motivating operations for negative reinforcement.     

Response allocation to concurrent fixed-ratio reinforcement schedules with work requirements by adults with mental retardation and typical preschool children.

The present experiments examined the effect of work requirements in combination with reinforcement schedule on the choice behavior of adults with mental retardation and preschool children. The work requirements of age-appropriate tasks (i.e., sorting silverware, jumping hurdles, tossing beanbags) were manipulated. Participants were presented with their choice of two response options for each trial that varied simultaneously on both work requirement and reinforcement schedule. Results showed that when responding to both choices occurred on the same reinforcement schedule, participants allocated most of their responses to the option with the easier work requirement. When the response option requiring less work was on a leaner reinforcement schedule, most participants shifted their choice to exert more work. There were individual differences across participants regarding their pattern of responding and when they switched from the lesser to the greater work requirement. Data showed that participants' responding was largely controlled by the reinforcement received for responding to each level of work. Various conceptualizations regarding the effects of work requirements on choice behavior are discussed.     

EFFECTS OF REINFORCEMENT CHOICE ON TASK RESPONDING IN INDIVIDUALS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

The effects of reinforcement choice on task performance were examined with 6 individuals who had been diagnosed with severe to profound mental retardation. Five highly preferred items were identified for each participant via stimulus preference assessments. Participants then were exposed to choice and no-choice conditions that were alternated within reversal and multielement designs. During choice sessions, participants were permitted to select between two preferred stimuli contingent on responding. During no-choice sessions, the therapist delivered a single item contingent on responding. Preference for the stimuli was held constant across conditions by yoking the items delivered during no-choice sessions to those selected during the immediately preceding choice sessions. All participants exhibited similar rates of responding across choice and no-choice conditions. These findings indicate that for individuals with severe disabilities, access to choice may not improve task performance when highly preferred items are already incorporated into instructional programs.     

Effects of modeling versus instructions on sensitivity to reinforcement schedules

This study examined the effects of modeling versus instructions on the choices of 3 typically developing children and 3 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) whose academic responding showed insensitivity to reinforcement schedules. During baseline, students chose between successively presented pairs of mathematics problems associated with different variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. After responding proved insensitive to the schedules, sessions were preceded by either instructions or modeling, counterbalanced across students in a multiple baseline design across subjects. During the instruction condition, students were told how to distribute responding to earn the most reinforcers. During the modeling condition, students observed the experimenter performing the task while describing her distribution of responding to obtain the most reinforcers. Once responding approximated obtained reinforcement under either condition, the schedules of reinforcement were changed, and neither instruction nor modeling was provided. Both instruction and modeling interventions quickly produced patterns of response allocation that approximated obtained rates of reinforcement, but responding established with modeling was more sensitive to subsequent changes in the reinforcement schedules than responding established with instructions. Results were similar for students with and without ADHD.     

Effects of choice of stimuli as reinforcement for task responding in reinforcement for task responding in preschoolers with and without developmental disabilities

The effects of choice and no choice of stimuli as reinforcement for task responding were investigated across preschoolers with and without disabilities. Five less preferred stimuli were identified for each participant using a stimulus preference assessment. No differences were found for choice and no-choice conditions when the less preferred stimuli were used as reinforcers.     

STIMULUS CHARACTERISTICS WITHIN DIRECTIVES: EFFECTS ON ACCURACY OF TASK COMPLETION

Three experiments were conducted in an outpatient setting with young children who had been referred for treatment of noncompliant behavior and who had coexisting receptive language or receptive vocabulary difficulties. Experiment 1 studied differential responding of the participants to a brief hierarchical directive analysis (least‐to‐most complex stimulus prompts) to identify directives that functioned as discriminative stimuli for accurate responding. Experiment 1 identified distinct patterns of accurate responding relative to manipulation of directive stimulus characteristics. Experiment 2 demonstrated that directives identified as effective or ineffective in obtaining stimulus control of accurate responding during Experiment 1 continued to control accurate responding across play activities and academic tasks. Experiment 3 probed effects of the interaction between the type of directive (effective vs. ineffective) and the reinforcement contingency (differential reinforcement for attempts vs. differential reinforcement for accurate responses) on accurate task completion and disruptive behavior. Results suggested that behavioral escalation from inaccurate responding to disruptive behavior occurred only when ineffective directives were combined with differential reinforcement for accurate task completion. The overall results are discussed in terms of developing a methodology for identifying stimulus characteristics of directives that affect accurate responding.     

AN EVALUATION OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN QUALITY OF ATTENTION AND NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT WITH CHILDREN WHO DISPLAY ESCAPE‐MAINTAINED PROBLEM BEHAVIOR

The choice‐making behavior of 2 typically developing children who engaged in problem behavior maintained by negative reinforcement was evaluated within a concurrent‐operants assessment that varied the quality of attention across free‐play and demand conditions. The results demonstrated that it was possible to bias responding towards academic demands for both participants by providing high‐quality attention, despite the continuous availability of negative reinforcement. The current study extended brief clinical methods with typically developing children and demonstrated how different qualities of attention provided across concurrent schedules could bias responding.     

Selecting effective intervention strategies for escape-maintained academic-performance problems: Consider giving 'em a break!

This study compared consequence-and antecedent-based strategies to determine which treatments or combination of treatments produced the strongest improvements in math computation fluency with four elementary-aged students whose math computation was under the control of an escape contingency. Functional analyses were conducted to identify elementary-school students whose academic responding was under a negative-reinforcement contingency. A multielement design was then used to examine the impact of four treatments (DNRA, DRA, task choice, and task choice plus DRA) on each student's rate of correct digits per min. All four treatments increased rate of responding. Differentiated results were obtained for all participants, indicating a reliable effect. Yet, participants responded differently to the treatments, illustrating the need to investigate and adapt interventions for escape-motivated behavior on a case-by-case basis. Results are also discussed in terms of the effectiveness of choice relative to reinforcement procedures, whether there were additional benefits to combining treatments, and which type of reinforcement procedures (DRA or DNRA) appears to be more effective for students whose behavior is under the control of an escape contingency.     

An analysis of procedures that affect response variability

Response variability is sensitive to antecedent and consequent manipulations. Researchers have investigated inducement, direct production through reinforcement, and stimulus control of response variability. Recently, researchers have shown that lag reinforcement schedules reliably increase variability but may also produce higher‐order stereotypy. There has been limited investigation of appropriate variability levels and alternation between repetition and variation. In a three‐part study, we evaluated levels of variability across a group of children, the effects of various procedures on producing response variability and novelty, and the use of schedule‐correlated stimuli for producing rapid alternation between repetition and variation. In Study 1, there was a nearly bimodal distribution of children emitting either low or high variability. In Study 2, for most children, fixed lag 4 and variable lag 4 schedules produced the highest levels of variability and novelty. In Study 3, responding was brought under control of schedule‐correlated stimuli, allowing for rapid alternation between repetition and variation.     

Antecedent stimulus control: using orienting cues to facilitate first-word acquisition for nonresponders with autism

Although considerable progress has been made in improving the acquisition of expressive verbal communication in children with autism, research has documented that a subpopulation of children still fail to acquire speech even with intensive intervention. One variable that might be important in facilitating responding for this nonverbal subgroup of children is the use of antecedent orienting cues. Using a multiple baseline design, this study examined whether individualized orienting cues could be identified, and whether their presentation would result in the production of verbal expressive words. The results showed that this antecedent stimulus control procedure produced improvements in responding to verbal models in all of the children, and subsequent gains in speech for some of the children. Theoretical and applied implications of orienting cues as they relate to antecedent stimulus control for children with autism are discussed.     

The Effects of Choice Between Nonpreferred Foods on the Food Consumption of Individuals with Food Selectivity

Previous research has concluded that presenting individuals with the opportunity to choose is a viable treatment for escape‐maintained behavior. Considering that food refusal behavior has been generally described as avoidant behavior, the present study aimed to evaluate the role of choice between nonpreferred foods on the food consumption and problematic mealtime behavior of two children with food selectivity. Each participant was allowed to choose between four nonpreferred foods in the choice condition and was not allowed to choose in the no‐choice condition. Further, the role of choice as an antecedent manipulation in mediating extinction‐induced responding was evaluated when choice alone was demonstrated to be ineffective in increasing consumption and a nonremoval of the spoon procedure was introduced. Results indicated that providing choices was effective in increasing the food consumption of one participant and was advantageous in decreasing emotional responding when a nonremoval of the spoon procedure was introduced for the second participant. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Human self-control and the density of reinforcement

Choice responding in adult humans on a discrete-trial button-pressing task was examined as a function of amount, delay, and overall density (points per unit time) of reinforcement. Reinforcement consisted of points that were exchangeable for money. In T 0 conditions, an impulsive response produced 4 points immediately and a self-control response produced 10 points after a delay of 15 s. In T 15 conditions, a constant delay of 15 s was added to both prereinforcer delays. Postreinforcer delays, which consisted of 15 s added to the end of each impulsive trial, equated trial durations regardless of choice, and was manipulated in both T 0 and T 15 conditions. In all conditions, choice was predicted directly from the relative reinforcement densities of the alternatives. Self-control was observed in all conditions except T 0 without postreinforcer delays, where the impulsive choices produced the higher reinforcement density. These results support previous studies showing that choice is a direct function of the relative reinforcement densities when conditioned (point) reinforcers are used. In contrast, where responding produces intrinsic (immediately consumable) reinforcers, immediacy of reinforcement appears to account for preference when density does not.     

A Brief Experimental Analysis of Reinforcer and Response Dimensions Related to Self-Control in an Outpatient Clinic

We conducted an assessment of self-control and impulsivity with 9 children referred to an outpatient clinic for impulsive, inattentive, and hyperactive behaviors. Each condition of the assessment consisted of a choice between 2 concurrently presented math or writing tasks, with 1 alternative reflecting impulsive responding and 1 alternative reflecting self-control. For the participants who demonstrated impulsive responding in 1 of 2 baseline conditions, we systematically varied reinforcer quality, delay to reinforcement, and response effort to evaluate the effects of these dimensions on the participants’ choices. Results of the assessment revealed that 3 participants displayed self-control responding, and 6 participants displayed impulsive responding during baseline conditions. Of the participants who displayed initial impulsivity, all showed self-control when 1 or more response or reinforcement dimensions were modified to bias responding within a brief multielement design. Results provide a unique application of concurrent schedules for conducting a brief assessment of impulsive responding in an outpatient clinical setting.     

TOO MUCH REINFORCEMENT,TOO LITTLE BEHAVIOR: ASSESSING TASK INTERSPERSAL PROCEDURES IN CONJUNCTION WITH DIFFERENT REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES WITH AUTISTIC CHILDREN

Task interspersal procedures have been quite effective in increasing autistic children's motivation to learn. These procedures have typically demonstrated that the inclusion of reinforced maintenance tasks (previously learned tasks) increases responding to new acquisition tasks because more reinforcers, in general, are available. However, studies have not specifically addressed the effects of various schedules of reinforcement, used in conjunction with task interspersal procedures, upon response acquisition. In the present study, a multiple baseline design across subjects was used to assess different reinforcement schedules. Five autistic children participated in learning sessions, during which trials of an acquisition task were interspersed with trials of three maintenance tasks. Correct responses to acquisition tasks were continuously reinforced throughout all conditions, while the reinforcement schedule for competent performance of maintenance tasks differed systematically. Results indicated that all children learned the new tasks when food reinforcers were presented only for acquisition tasks. Results are discussed in terms of behavioral contrast and improving the effectiveness of motivation-enhancing procedures for autistic children.     

BEHAVIORAL MOMENTUM IN THE TREATMENT OF NONCOMPLIANCE

Behavioral momentum refers to the tendency for behavior to persist following a change in environmental conditions. The greater the rate of reinforcement, the greater the behavioral momentum. The intervention for noncompliance consisted of issuing a sequence of commands with which the subject was very likely to comply (i.e., high-probability commands) immediately prior to issuing a low-probability command. In each of five experiments, the high-probability command sequence resulted in a “momentum” of compliant responding that persisted when a low-probability request was issued. Results showed the antecedent high-probability command sequence increased compliance and decreased compliance latency and task duration. “Momentum-like” effects were shown to be distinct from experimenter attention and to depend on the contiguity between the high-probability command sequence and the low-probability command.     

Further examination of factors that influence preference for positive versus negative reinforcement

Factors that influence choice between qualitatively different reinforcers (e.g., a food item or a break from work) are important to consider when arranging treatments for problem behavior. Previous findings indicate that children who engage in problem behavior maintained by escape from demands may choose a food item over the functional reinforcer during treatment (DeLeon, Neidert, Anders, & Rodriguez-Catter, 2001; Lalli et al., 1999). However, a number of variables may influence choice between concurrently available forms of reinforcement. An analogue for treatment situations in which positive reinforcement for compliance is in direct competition with negative reinforcement for problem behavior was used in the current study to evaluate several variables that may influence choice. Participants were 5 children who had been diagnosed with developmental disabilities and who engaged in problem behavior maintained by escape from demands. In the first phase, the effects of task preference and schedule of reinforcement on choice between a 30-s break and a high-preference food item were evaluated. The food item was preferred over the break, regardless of the preference level of the task or the reinforcement schedule, for all but 1 participant. In the second phase, the quality of the break was manipulated by combining escape with toys, attention, or both. Only 1 participant showed preference for the enriched break. In the third phase, choice of a medium- or low-preference food item versus the enriched break was evaluated. Three of 4 participants showed preference for the break over the less preferred food item. Results extend previous research by identifying some of the conditions under which individuals who engage in escape-maintained behavior will prefer a food reinforcer over the functional one.