CORRESPONDENCE TRAINING: AN EXAMPLE OF RULE-GOVERNED BEHAVIOR?

Two groups of six mentally retarded adults were exposed to either a “say/do” correspondence training program or a “do only” reinforcement procedure to evaluate the suggestion of Rogers-Warren and Baer (1976) that reinforcement of the nonverbal target behavior in the absence of the relevant verbal behavior may account for the behavior changes seen in correspondence training. The participants worked in an experimental setting on a variety of manipulatory responses leading to various auditory and visual consequences. Analysis of individual patterns of responding indicated no apparent differences between the groups during training; four individuals in each group appeared to develop generalized correspondence skills. We conclude that the outcome of correspondence training may not necessarily be verbal regulation of behavior as is assumed. Rather, we suggest that the notion of rule-governed behavior can best account for the type of behavior changes seen in correspondence studies.     

Certifying Juveniles for Adult Court: An Attribution Analysis1

Certification is the process whereby older juveniles who have committed felony offenses are transferred from juvenile courts to adult courts. The present study examined the variables that influence decisions in these cases and used attribution theory to conceptualize the process. Data were obtained from files of 150 youths on whom certification petitions had been filed from January 1981 to October 1984. Of these, 125 had been certified and 25 had not. The sample comprised 148 males and 2 females. Data included seriousness of the offense, previous offenses, potential for aggressiveness, level of involvement in the offense, age, court in which the case was heard, year in which the case was heard, IQ, family income and sex. Level of involvement, seriousness of the offense and potential for aggressiveness had the strongest association with certification outcomes, with those high on these measures significantly more likely to be certified. The cluster that predicted outcomes best included level of involvement, seriousness of the offense, potential for aggressiveness, IQ, year in which the case was heard, court in which the case was heard, sex and previous offenses. The most explicitly behavioral variable—how actively the child participated in the offense—was the best single predictor of outcomes.     

SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON “SELF-STIMULATORY” BEHAVIOR: ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT APPLICATION

We tested the hypothesis that the “self-stimulatory” behaviors exhibited by some individuals may be socially mediated. Four developmentally disabled children who exhibited hand flapping and body rocking participated in a series of three experiments conducted to assess the influence of social variables on stereotyped behavior and to develop a treatment based on the assessment. Experiment 1 used an assessment procedure to determine the relative influences of social attention and task demands on stereotyped behavior. For all four children, hand flapping and body rocking increased when difficult academic tasks were introduced. Experiment 2 involved the use of a procedural time-out and demonstrated that removing task demands contingent on stereotyped behavior resulted in increased rates of hand flapping and body rocking. In Experiment 3, these results were used to develop a communication treatment that consisted of teaching the children to request assistance on the difficult tasks. This treatment resulted in significant reductions in self-stimulatory behavior. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that some forms of repetitive stereotyped behavior may come to serve social functions (e.g., escape from aversive situations). Teaching a functionally equivalent communicative alternative to escape-motivated stereotyped behavior can be an effective form of intervention for this problem.     

PROMOTING AUTOMOBILE SAFETY BELT USE BY YOUNG CHILDREN

A program using behavioral practice, assertiveness training, and social and contrived reinforcers was developed to establish and maintain automobile safety belt use by young children. Sixteen children (ages 4.8 to 7 years) who never used their safety belts during a 5-day preexperimental observation period were randomly assigned to two groups of eight each. A multiple baseline design across groups was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training program. During the 8-day baseline period for Group 1, no children used their safety belts when unobtrusively observed while being driven from school. During the 26-day intervention period, the children were buckled up on 96% of the observations. Follow-up probes conducted 2–3 months after program discontinuance found safety belt use to range from 86% to 100%. For Group 2, the 14-day baseline safety belt use averaged 6% and increased to a mean of 81% during the 20-day training and maintenance program. Follow-up probes 2–3 months later found safety belt use to occur during 75% to 96% of the observations. Parent questionnaires indicated the generalizability and social validity of the program.     

A NEUROBIOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVE TO THE PERCEPTUAL REINFORCEMENT HYPOTHESIS OF STEREOTYPED BEHAVIOR: A COMMENTARY ON “SELF-STIMULATORY BEHAVIOR AND PERCEPTUAL REINFORCEMENT”

A perceptual reinforcement theory of stereotyped movements is advanced by Lovaas, Newsom, and Hickman (1987) in an effort to integrate a number of diverse observations about the origins and maintenance of this behavior. We, in turn, argue that the theory, as presented, is logically flawed and fails to take into account important biological findings and theory concerning pathological stereotyped acts. An alternative theory, derived primarily from neurological concepts, is briefly described.     

Unprogrammed effects of training high-status peers to interact with severely handicapped children.

We examined the effects of a peer initiation intervention with high- and low-status nonhandicapped students on the behavior of untrained peers toward handicapped students. In the context of a counterbalanced withdrawal design, high- and low-status nonhandicapped students were taught to direct social initiations to eight severely handicapped students during recess activities. The interactions of the high-status students resulted in higher levels of initiations by untrained peers toward the handicapped students than did the interactions of the low-status students. Social response levels were also differentially affected by the status of the peer initiator.     

Saying and doing: A contingency-space analysis

Correspondences between verbal responding (saying) and nonverbal responding (doing) may be organized in terms of the classes of verbal/nonverbal relations into which particular instances of verbal/nonverbal response sequences can enter. Contingency spaces, which display relations among events in terms of the probability of one event given or not given another, have been useful in analyses of nonverbal behavior. We derive a taxonomy of verbal/nonverbal behavior relations from a contingency space that takes into account two conditional probabilities: the probability of a nonverbal response given a verbal response and that probability given the absence of the verbal response. For example, positive correspondence may be said to exist as a response class when the probability of doing is high given saying but is otherwise low. Criteria for other generalized classes, including negative correspondence, follow from this analysis.     

Changes in the level and quality of object relations in psychoanalysis: followup of a longitudinal, prospective study

As part of a prospective, longitudinal study of suitability for and outcome of psychoanalysis, 22 patients were evaluated for changes in the level and quality of their object relations. These patients had been accepted for supervised analysis with candidates in training by senior analysts who had diagnosed them as neurotic. The majority of these patients reported difficulties in relationships as at least one of their reasons for originally seeking psychoanalytic treatment. Prior to beginning analysis, each patient was given a battery of psychological tests. One year after the termination of analysis, the test battery was readministered and a followup interview was conducted separately with each patient and analyst. Ratings of change based on patient and analyst interviews and comparisons of psychological tests before and after treatment all showed statistically significant improvement in the level and quality of object relations for this patient group. The results of this study support what is often observed in clinical practice, that psychoanalysis has a positive effect on the level and quality of a patient's object relations.     

Violent crime, sociopathy and love deprivation among adolescent delinquents

Ever since Wechsler observed that the adolescent sociopath characteristically scored higher on the performance section of the Wechsler IQ scale relative to the verbal section, psychologists have been debating its meaning. This study examines the relationships between P-V discrepancy scores, love deprivation, and juvenile delinquency among a sample of juvenile probationers. P greater than V scores were significantly related to love deprivation and violent crimes. It was determined that much of the explanatory power of P greater than V with regard to violent delinquent behavior was mediated by love deprivation. We also found that P greater than V scores could not be explained away by social class, low verbal scores, or lower full-scale scores. Only love deprivation was found to be significantly related to P greater than V scores in our path model, thus offering some support to the assertions of some authors that early emotional stresses affect subsequent autonomic nervous system function.