EFFECTIVENESS OF FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING WITH AND WITHOUT EXTINCTION AND PUNISHMENT: A SUMMARY OF 21 INPATIENT CASES

Functional communication training (FCT) is a frequently used treatment for reducing problem behavior exhibited by individuals with developmental disabilities. Once the operant function of problem behavior is identified by a functional analysis, the client is taught to emit an appropriate communicative response to obtain the reinforcer that is responsible for behavioral maintenance. Studies on FCT have typically used small numbers of participants, have reported primarily on clients for whom FCT was successful, and have varied with respect to their use of other treatment components. The main purposes of the present study were to evaluate the efficacy of FCT for treating severe problem behavior in a relatively large sample of individuals with mental retardation (N = 21) and to determine the contribution of extinction and punishment components to FCT treatment packages. FCT with extinction was effective in reducing problem behavior for the majority of clients and resulted in at least a 90% reduction in problem behavior in nearly half the applications. However, when demand or delay-to-reinforcement fading was added to FCT with extinction, treatment efficacy was reduced in about one half of the applications. FCT with punishment (both with and without fading) resulted in at least a 90% reduction in problem behavior for every case in which it was applied.     

The role of stimulus preexposure in problem solving by Octopus vulgaris

Octopus vulgaris is able to open transparent glass jars closed with plastic plugs and containing live crabs. The decrease in performance times for removing the plug and seizing the prey with increasing experience of the task has been taken to indicate learning. However, octopuses’ attack behaviors are typically slow and variable in novel environmental situations. In this study the role of preexposure to selected features of the problem-solving context was investigated. Although octopuses failed to benefit from greater familiarity with the training context or with selected elements of the task of solving the jar problem, the methodological strategies used are instructive in potentially clarifying the role of complex problem-solving behaviors in this species including stimulus preexposure and social learning. Received: 27 April 1998 / Accepted after revision: 24 July 1998     

Response to cigarette deprivation as a function of oral fantasy.

The role of oral fantasy in reactions of heavy smokers to smoking deprivation was studied. Experimental subjects were first evaluated with the Holtzman Inkblot Test to measure amount of oral fantasy. They also evaluated themselves on a number of Semantic Differential continua. Smoking deprivation followed. Retest Holtzman blots and Semantic Differential rating scales were then administered. Subjects also indicated number of somatic symptoms and body image distortions produced by deprivation. Control subjects followed the same paradigm except they smoked throughout the procedure. It was found that the greater the orality of experimental subjects the greater the number of somatic symptoms and body distortions they experienced following deprivation; and the more they viewed self as having shifted in a less favorable and less potent direction. Such relationships were absent in the control group.     

Situation-specific variables as determinants of perceived environmental aesthetic quality and perceived crowdedness

It was hypothesized that relevant situation-specific variables may act along with objective physical conditions to determine environmental perception, and that the exclusive use of the physical level of an environmental stimulus to predict behavior may, therefore, be inadequate. A 2 × 4 between-subjects design was employed in which an attitudinally similar or dissimilar confederate interacted with a subject at one of four distances. As hypothesized, subjects who interacted with a similar confederate judged the environment to be of higher aesthetic quality, perceived themselves to be less crowded, and felt affectively more positive than subjects who interacted with a dissimilar other. The results were also interpreted as supporting the utility of the Byrne-Clore (1970) reinforcementaffect model of evaluative responses as a means of predicting environmental perception and the behavioral response to environmental stimuli.     

The effect of knowledge of results on learning and performance IV. the direction of the error in very simple skills

Re-examination of the data discussed in previous papers of this series shows a greater tendency toward “overshooting” when the time interval between trials, in some of the experiments, is short than when it is longer. The subject tends to make a bigger movement or exert more pressure with short intervals. This seems to be true with or without visual knowledge of results. On the other hand, with the experiments in which the task was to press a key for a given short interval, the effect was not conclusively shown.

A hypothesis is put forward to explain these results in terms of proprioceptive adaptation.