Establishment of mands following tact training as a function of reinforcer strength

We examined some conditions under which a response acquired as a tact might facilitate the establishment of a mand. We taught 3 participants with developmental disabilities to tact the items ranked highest and lowest in a preference assessment and subsequently tested to see if the responses occurred as mands. All participants manded for the highly preferred item but rarely manded for the nonpreferred item. These results indicate that, although tact and mand functions are different, conditions can be created to facilitate transfer from the former to the latter. Implications for communication training are discussed.     

Response to commentary on the multimodal treatment study of ADHD (MTA): mining the meaning of the MTA

In the December 2000 issue of the Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, we published a set of papers presenting secondary analyses of the Multimodal Treatment Study of ADHD (MTA), and R. A. Barkley (2000) provided a commentary. A critique of the design of the study (MTA Cooperative Group, 1999) was presented based on a theoretical perspective of a behavioral inhibition deficit that has been hypothesized as the core deficit of ADHD (R. A. Barkley, 1997). The commentary questioned the design and analysis of the MTA in terms of (1) the empirical criteria for selection of components of behavioral (Beh) intervention, (2) the effectiveness of the Beh intervention, (3) the methods for analyses at the group and individual level, (4) implications of the MTA findings for clinical practice, (5) the role of genetics in response to treatment, and (6) the lack of a nontreatment control group. In this response, we relate the content of the papers to the commentary, (1) by reviewing the selection criteria for the Beh treatment, as outlined by K. C. Wells, W. E. Pelham, et al. (2000), (2) by addressing the myth that the MTA Beh treatment was ineffective (Pelham, 1999), (3) by describing the use of analyses at the level of the individual participant, as presented by J. S. March et al. (2000) and W. E. Pelham et al. (2000) as well as elsewhere by J. M. Swanson et al. (2001) and C. K. Conners et al. (2001), (4) by relating some of the suggestions from the secondary analyses about clinically relevant factors such as comorbidity (as presented by J. S. March et al., 2000) and family and parental characteristics (as presented by B. Hoza et al., 2000, S. P. Hinshaw et al., 2000, and K. C. Wells, J. N. Epstein, et al., 2000), (5) by discussing the statistical concept of heritability and the lack of a significant difference in the presence of ADHD symptoms in parents of the MTA families compared to parents in the classmate-control families (as presented by J. N. Epstein, et al., 2000), and (6) by acknowledging that an ethically necessary weakness of the MTA design is that it did not include a no-treatment control group. We discuss the use of secondary analyses to suggest how, when, and for what subgroups effectiveness of the Beh treatment may have been manifested. Finally, we invite others to use the large and rich data set that will soon be available in the public domain, to perform secondary analyses to mine the meaning of the MTA and to evaluate theories of ADHD and response to treatments.     

Reinforcement schedule thinning following treatment with functional communication training

We evaluated four methods for increasing the practicality of functional communication training (FCT) by decreasing the frequency of reinforcement for alternative behavior. Three participants whose problem behaviors were maintained by positive reinforcement were treated successfully with FCT in which reinforcement for alternative behavior was initially delivered on fixed-ratio (FR) 1 schedules. One participant was then exposed to increasing delays to reinforcement under FR 1, a graduated fixed-interval (FI) schedule, and a graduated multiple-schedule arrangement in which signaled periods of reinforcement and extinction were alternated. Results showed that (a) increasing delays resulted in extinction of the alternative behavior, (b) the FI schedule produced undesirably high rates of the alternative behavior, and (c) the multiple schedule resulted in moderate and stable levels of the alternative behavior as the duration of the extinction component was increased. The other 2 participants were exposed to graduated mixed-schedule (unsignaled alternation between reinforcement and extinction components) and multiple-schedule (signaled alternation between reinforcement and extinction components) arrangements in which the durations of the reinforcement and extinction components were modified. Results obtained for these 2 participants indicated that the use of discriminative stimuli in the multiple schedule facilitated reinforcement schedule thinning. Upon completion of treatment, problem behavior remained low (or at zero), whereas alternative behavior was maintained as well as differentiated during a multiple-schedule arrangement consisting of a 4-min extinction period followed by a 1-min reinforcement period.     

Functional analysis of problem behavior: a review

Functional analysis methodology focuses on the identification of variables that influence the occurrence of problem behavior and has become a hallmark of contemporary approaches to behavioral assessment. In light of the widespread use of pretreatment functional analyses in articles published in this and other journals, we reviewed the literature in an attempt to identify best practices and directions for future research. Studies included in the present review were those in which (a) a pretreatment assessment based on (b) direct observation and measurement of (c) problem behavior was conducted under (d) at least two conditions involving manipulation of an environmental variable in an attempt (e) to demonstrate a relation between the environmental event and behavior. Studies that met the criteria for inclusion were quantified and critically evaluated along a number of dimensions related to subject and setting characteristics, parametric and qualitative characteristics of the methodology, types of assessment conditions, experimental designs, topographies of problem behaviors, and the manner in which data were displayed and analyzed.     

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: do experimenter-presented interlopers have any effect?

When a person is in a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state, they will sometimes recall a word that is similar in sound to the word they are attempting to retrieve. Woodworth (1929) argued that these interloper words both cause and sustain TOT states, whereas Brown and McNeill (1966) suggested that they are part of the process that leads to TOT resolution. Jones and Langford (1987) and Jones (1989) explicitly presented interloper words along with definitions of words that subjects were asked to recall. They reported that interlopers that were phonologically related to the target word increased the incidence of TOTs and concluded that this supported Woodworth's position. In three experiments, we adopted the interloper paradigm, but also included a control group who heard the definitions without interloper words. In Experiment 1, the definitions that Jones used with phonological interlopers created more TOTs even when no interlopers were presented. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we matched definitions for the number of TOTs they produced in the absence of interlopers. Under these circumstances we found no effect of interloper words at all. We conclude that there is no evidence from this paradigm to support the idea that interloper words are involved in either the causation or resolution of TOTs.     

Memory aids in reality orientation: a single-case study

A single-case study of retraining both verbal and behavioural orientation in an 84-yr-old patient with senile dementia is described. In contrast to the traditional approach of employing RO sessions in which verbal learning and subsequent free recall is employed, the patient was provided with a watch and a diary containing personalized information and a daily behavioural itinerary. Results suggest that such memory aids can increase orientation and when effective use of these aids becomes the target of a specific behavioural training then purposive behaviour can be engineered.     

EFFECTS OF WRIST WEIGHTS ON SELF-INJURIOUS AND ADAPTIVE BEHAVIORS

The effects of wrist weights on the self-injurious and adaptive behaviors of a young boy with profound mental retardation were evaluated. Application of wrist weights reduced SIB by 92% and was associated with either increases or stable levels of multiple novel and preexisting adaptive behaviors.     

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT OF CIGARETTE PICA

A series of analyses was conducted to assess and treat the pica of cigarette butts by a young man with mental retardation and autism. First, we demonstrated that pica was maintained in a condition with no social consequences when the available cigarettes contained nicotine but not when the cigarettes contained herbs without nicotine. Second, a choice assessment (Fisher et al., 1992) confirmed that tobacco was preferred over the other components of the cigarette (e.g., paper, filter, etc.). Third, an analogue functional analysis (Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, 1982/1994) demonstrated that cigarette pica was maintained independent of social consequences. Fourth, a treatment designed to interrupt the hypothesized response—reinforcer relationship reduced consumption of cigarettes to zero. Finally, because cigarette pica occurred primarily when the individual was alone or under minimal supervision, a procedure based on stimulus control was developed to improve the effectiveness of the intervention in these situations.     

Individual differences in visual discrimination of letters.

Research on the distinctive features of letters has been inconclusive. Investigators may have overlooked individual variations in their data which would have supported feature-extraction hypotheses but were concealed by analyses which averaged data into group means. Response latencies from a matching discrimination task with the 26 English capital letters were analyzed with INDSCAL, a multidimensional scaling procedure which weights individual contributions to a psychological space. Underlying a dimensions were linearity, curvature, angularity, and closure. The solution disclosed that individuals utilized these features differentially in the visual discriminations. The results suggest that future research in visual feature extraction will benefit from the examination of individual variations in the perceptual process.     

A component analysis of "stereotypy as reinforcement" for alternative behavior

Results from several studies have suggested that the opportunity to engage in stereotypic behavior may function as reinforcement for alternative, more socially desirable behaviors. However, the procedural components of this intervention include several distinct operations whose effects have not been analyzed separately. While measuring the occurrence of stereotypy and an alternative behavior (manipulation of leisure materials), we exposed 3 participants to three or four components of a "stereotypy as reinforcement" contingency: (a) continuous access to materials, (b) prompts to manipulate materials, (c) restricted access to stereotypy (i.e., response blocking), and (d) access to stereotypy contingent on manipulating the materials. Continuous access to materials and prompting (a and b) produced negligible results. Restriction of stereotypy (c) produced a large increase in the alternative behavior of 2 participants, suggesting that response restriction per se may occasion alternative behavior. However, contingent access to stereotypy (d) was necessary to increase the 3rd participant's object manipulation; this finding provided some support for the use of stereotypy as reinforcement for alternative behavior. Finally, when transfer of the effects of intervention was assessed during periods in which active intervention components were withdrawn, the alternative behavior was maintained for 1 participant.