Manipulating establishing operations to verify and establish stimulus control during mand training

Acquisition of verbal behavior is a major goal of interventions for children with developmental disabilities. We evaluated the effectiveness of manipulation of an establishing operation for functional discriminated mands. Four individuals with developmental disabilities participated in a training procedure designed to teach two separate mands for two separate preferred items. Participants were taught to mand using picture cards. Following training, the manipulation of the establishing operation was used to assess and establish discriminated manding. This manipulation involved providing free access to one of the preferred items, such that there should be no motivation to ask for it, while motivation to ask for the other item remained in place. Three of the 4 participants acquired discriminated manding using topographically similar responses (picture cards). One participant did not acquire a discriminated mand until topographically distinct mands were taught (vocal and picture card). Results suggest that discrimination training is not necessarily sufficient to teach discriminated manding when more than one picture card showing preferred items is used. In addition, manipulation of the establishing operation served as an appropriate assessment tool for the verification of discriminated manding as well as a possible training tool to establish discriminated manding.     

Increasing handwashing in young children: A brief review

Personal hygiene is critical for preventing the spread of infection. One important component of personal hygiene is handwashing. This review summarizes research on behavioral strategies to address handwashing in children, offers areas for additional research, and suggests a treatment package to teach handwashing to young children.     

The Effectiveness of an Attachment‐Based Intervention in Promoting Foster Mothers’ Sensitivity toward Foster Infants

Infants in foster care need sensitive, responsive caregivers to promote their healthy outcomes. The current study examined the effectiveness of the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch‐up Intervention, a short‐term, targeted, attachment‐based intervention program designed to promote sensitive caregiving behavior among foster mothers. Ninety‐six foster mother–infant dyads participated in this study; 44 dyads were assigned to the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch‐up Intervention, and 52 dyads were assigned to a control intervention. Results of hierarchical linear modeling indicated that foster mothers who were assigned to the Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch‐up Intervention showed greater improvements in their sensitivity from pre‐ to postintervention assessment time points when compared with foster mothers who were assigned to the control intervention. We conclude that a short‐term, targeted, attachment‐based intervention is effective in changing foster mothers’ responsiveness to their foster infants, which is critical for foster infants’ healthy socioemotional adjustment.     

The effect of placement instability on adopted children's inhibitory control abilities and oppositional behavior

This study assessed relations among placement instability, inhibitory control, and caregiver-rated child behavior. The sample included 33 adopted children who had experienced placement instability, 42 adopted children who had experienced 1 stable placement, and 27 children never placed in foster care. Five- and 6-year-old children completed the day-night task, which requires children to inhibit a prepotent response, and a control task that presents similar memory demands but does not require inhibition (C. L. Gerstadt, Y. J. Hong, & A. Diamond, 1994). Adopted children who had experienced placement instability performed worse on the inhibition task than did both other groups of children, when the authors controlled for age, verbal intelligence (as measured with the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence--Revised; D. Wechsler, 1989; or the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test--Third Edition; L. M. Dunn & L. M. Dunn, 1997), and control task performance (p<.01). Children who had experienced placement instability were also rated on the Child Behavior Checklist as more oppositional than other children (p<.01; T. M. Achenbach & L. A. Rescorla, 2000). Inhibitory control did not mediate the association between placement instability and oppositional behavior (p>.05). These results suggest that placement instability may adversely affect the social-emotional development of adopted children.     

Functional assessment and treatment of pica: a single‐case experiment

The pica of a 6‐year‐old girl diagnosed with autism was initially shown to persist in the absence of socially mediated consequences. In an attempt to provide a competing source of oral stimulation, we used a stimulus preference assessment to identify food items that were subsequently presented noncontingently. However, the noncontingent schedule could not be thinned to a practical variation while still maintaining reductions in pica. A subsequent multielement evaluation of response blocking and verbal reprimands demonstrated that neither intervention both produced and maintained low levels of pica. Verbal reprimands were then used in conjunction with noncontingent food presentation, but this intervention did not produce significant reductions in pica. Suppression of pica was ultimately obtained in both a clinic setting and in the child's natural environment using contingent, varied auditory stimulation. The results are discussed in the context of the ‘least restrictive alternative’ model of treatment selection. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Analysis of response allocation in individuals with multiple forms of stereotyped behavior

Three experiments were conducted to evaluate response allocation of stereotypy during free-operant and restricted-operant conditions. Five children with autism or related developmental disabilities participated in at least one and up to three of the experiments. In Experiment 1, the stereotypic response that emerged as most probable during a free-operant phase was restricted, and response allocation was again evaluated. The results for 3 participants showed that restricting the high-probability response was correlated with covarying reductions in a nontargeted stereotypy. In Experiment 2, the effect of environmental enrichment on response allocation was evaluated. One participant reallocated behavior to appropriate object manipulation, 1 participant showed no change in behavior, and a 3rd participant reallocated behavior to object manipulation only when the putative stimulus products of the object manipulation matched those of stereotypy. In Experiment 3, additional interventions were implemented to promote response reallocation. Results showed that both response restriction and reinforcement for object manipulation decreased stereotypy and increased object manipulation. Collectively, the results of these experiments point to a need for complex evaluations of interventions for stereotypy.     

An evaluation of toy quality for increasing self‐control in typically developing preschool children

Children often make impulsive choices, and previous research has shown that access to activities during the delay may enhance self‐control (e.g., Newquist, Dozier, & Neidert, 2012). The purpose of the current study was to extend the results of Newquist et al. (2012) by comparing the effects of access to low‐preference, moderate‐preference, and high‐preference toys during delays. Results showed that (a) all toys increased self‐control for 2 participants when toys were available for all choice options and (b) high‐preference toys (and sometimes moderate‐preference toys) increased self‐control for 3 participants when the toys were available only for large delayed choices.     

Foster mother state of mind and treatment use: Different challenges for different people

On the basis of our research findings from the last 10 years, we have developed a training program for foster parents that targets three critical needs for infants in foster care. This treatment program has now been manualized to allow dissemination to other sites. With our intervention as well as any other, we see it as critical to tailor services to the needs of individual clients rather than adhering in doctrinaire fashion to the manual. In particular, we suggest that attending to foster parents' state of mind with regard to attachment is vital to providing an effective treatment. In this article, we present examples of foster parents with different states of mind and describe how treatment is tailored to meet their individual needs.