A classroom program teaching disadvantaged youths to write biographic information

Little attention has been given to how formal classroom instruction can be adapted to teach youths everyday skills such as the correct writing of biographic information frequently requested in transactions like applying for a job or a social security number and cashing a check. In this study, six youths in a special education classroom were taught to complete job application forms with the date, their name, signature, address, telephone number, date of birth, and a reference's name, address, and occupation. Each youth was trained on one item of biographic information at a time, after which he was tested on four application forms, including one on which he had not been trained. The tests show that after an item had been taught, it was correctly used in completing application forms on which the youths had been trained and forms on which they had never been trained. The study demonstrates the feasibility of teaching community-living, vocation-related skills to special-education youths in a classroom setting.     

SOME STRUCTURAL ASPECTS OF DEVIANT CHILD BEHAVIOR1

Covariation within behavior repertoires of problem children were examined. Two boys, referred for psychological help, were observed both at school and at home for about 3 yr. A coded observation system permitted scoring of 19 child-behavior categories and six social-environment categories. After a two-month baseline, behavior categories were intercorrelated, demonstrating that each child showed a group of behaviors that covaried. These groupings were specific to the home and school settings. Contingency management procedures were then applied to each child's problem behaviors in one setting. Next, a reversal phase was instituted, followed by resumption of the initial contingency management phase. These three phases lasted seven months, until the end of the children's public school terms. Results showed that the baseline group of covarying behaviors continued to covary over the three experimental phases. The children then entered a remedial education setting for three summer months, and then returned to schools and were observed in follow-up for 2 yr. The baseline group of behaviors continued to covary during both phases. The behavior covariations could not be accounted for on the basis of temporal relationships between the behaviors and social environment categories. Although no behavior covariations extended across either child's home and school settings, contingency management procedures produced across-setting effects.     

Generalization of teacher behavior as a function of subject matter specific discrimination training

The effect of training on the rate of behavior-specific praise for two fourth-grade teachers was investigated within a multiple-baseline design. Training teachers to identify instances of behavior-specific praise on videotaped presentations (discrimination training) combined with instructions to use praise, and audiotape recordings of the teachers' classroom interactions as feedback, increased the rates of behavior-specific praise. However, the effects were restricted to subject-matter areas in which training was conducted.     

Correspondence between saying and doing: teaching children to share and praise

Five small groups of preschool children were taught to share and praise by the modelling of these behaviors and reinforcement of their reports of sharing and praising. Experiment I demonstrated that modelling and reinforcement of any (true or untrue) reports of sharing, and then of praising, promptly increased reports of the corresponding behaviors. Modelling and reinforcement for true reports of each behavior increased both reporting and actual behavior. Experiment II showed that both reported and actual sharing and praising may be increased by modelling and reinforcement for true reports of the target behavior, without previous reinforcement for any (true or untrue) reports of those behaviors. Sharing, but not praising, generalized to a second setting. Experiment III replicated the results of Experiment II for sharing and praising, and demonstrated similar success in increasing a third behavior, specific praising. In general, these experiments show that developing correspondence between children's reports of behavior and actual behavior may be an efficient means of increasing prosocial responses.     

Evaluation of home-based programs for teaching personal safety skills to children

We evaluated the efficacy of a commercially available program, the Red Flag, Green Flag Prevention Book, used by parents to teach their children personal safety skills. Children's knowledge and skills regarding the prevention of sexual abuse and abduction were assessed prior to, during, and after training. In one group, training consisted of parents using the prevention book to train their children. Parents of children in the second group used the prevention book with added instructions. Children who did not achieve criterion performance after training with the prevention book received behavioral skills training provided by the experimenter. All children acquired safety skills following behavioral skills training. Follow-up probes 2 months later showed skill maintenance among the older children. Parents reported satisfaction with the procedures and no signs of behavioral or emotional problems following the follow-up probe.     

Absolute and relative measures of dimensional contrast.

Two sets of experiments examined the discriminative performance of pigeons on a visual flicker-rate continuum using a maintained generalization procedure. In the first experiment, responses during the intermediate stimulus value were not reinforced, whereas responses during all other stimuli were reinforced periodically. In the second experiment, training was similar to the first, with the exception of one condition in which stimuli adjacent to the negative stimulus border were eliminated from the discrimination set. Results from both experiments show that positive dimensional contrast seems to represent a relative enhancement of discrimination gradient form, rather than an absolute increase in responding with respect to prior baseline. Further, the form and magnitude of positive dimensional contrast are not predictable from the form and magnitude of baseline response rates. Results from the second experiment indicate that eliminating border stimuli increased response-rate differences between positive and negative stimuli, but did not necessarily diminish the magnitude of positive dimensional contrast.     

DOES CONDITIONAL DISCRIMINATION LEARNING BY PIGEONS NECESSARILY INVOLVE HIERARCHICAL RELATIONSHIPS?

Four experiments demonstrate that when putative conditional and discriminative cues are presented simultaneously in the single reversal procedure, it is not possible to ascribe a uniquely conditional or uniquely discriminative function to either of the cues. In Experiment 1, pigeons were trained to respond to a blue key and not to a red key while the houselight was on; then in a different session they learned the reversal of this discrimination with the houselight off (single reversal). Separate groups were tested for color generalization with houselight conditions alternating in blocks of trials or for houselight intensity generalization with blue and red key colors alternating in blocks of trials. Both test procedures revealed a conditional relationship between houselight and key color conditions. Experiment 2 produced the same result following training in which the key colors were held constant across training sessions while the houselight and no houselight conditions varied within sessions. In Experiment 3, separate groups were trained with the two procedures but were tested with randomly ordered combinations of key colors and houselight intensities. The two groups yielded indistinguishable bidimensional generalization gradients with peaks at both previously reinforced stimulus combinations. In Experiment 4 the subjects were switched from one of these training procedures to the other with no decrement in their discriminative performance. We conclude that for successive discriminations between conditional- and discriminative-stimulus combinations, the notion of a hierarchical relation between conditional and discriminative stimuli must be extended to include a symmetrical relationship or the notion should be abandoned altogether.     

Acquisition and maintenance of autoshaped key pecking as a function of food stimulus and key stimulus similarity.

The results of a number of recent studies suggest that acquisitions of autoshaped key pecking in pigeons is affected by the similarity of the grain-hopper stimulus and response-key stimulus. In Experiment 1 this hypothesis was tested by training independent groups of pigeons to key peck under six different hopper-stimulus and key-stimulus similarity conditions, and three procedures containing either immediate reinforcement, variable delay of reinforcement, or omission of reinforcement for key pecking. Number of trials to acquisition was found to be related to the similarity variable. Maintained responding was affected by the response-reinforcer contingency. This effect was found both within and between subjects. Under two of the contingencies (automaintenance and omission), maintained responding continued to be affected by the similarity of the hopper stimulus and key stimulus. In Experiment 2 pigeons were given omission training with a hopper light on or off. Both acquisition and maintenance of key pecking were facilitated by the presence of the hopper light. The present findings suggest that much of the responding reported in various automatic shaping and training procedures may reflect the effects of key stimulus/food stimulus similarity.     

PROGRAMMING “LOOSE TRAINING” AS A STRATEGY TO FACILITATE LANGUAGE GENERALIZATION

This study investigated the generalization of spontaneous complex language behavior across a nontraining setting and the durability of generalization as a result of programming and “loose training” strategy. A within-subject, across-behaviors multiple-baseline design was used to examine the performance of two moderately retarded students in the use of is/are across three syntactic structures (i.e., “wh” questions, “yes/no” reversal questions, and statements). The language training procedure used in this study represented a functional example of programming “loose training.” The procedure involved conducting concurrent language training within the context of an academic training task, and establishing a functional reduction in stimulus control by permitting the student to initiate a language response based on a wide array of naturally occurring stimulus events. Concurrent probes were conducted in the free play setting to assess the immediate generalization and the durability of the language behaviors. The results demonstrated that “loose training” was effective in establishing a specific set of language responses with the participants of this investigation. Further, both students demonstrated spontaneous use of the language behavior in the free play generalization setting and a trend was clearly evident for generalization to continue across time. Thus, the methods used appear to be successful for training the use of is/are in three syntactic structures.     

NONVOCAL LANGUAGE ACQUISITION IN ADOLESCENTS WITH SEVERE PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: BLISSYMBOL VERSUS ICONIC STIMULUS FORMATS

This study compared training in two language systems for three severely handicapped, nonvocal adolescents: the Bliss symbol system and an iconic picture system. Following baseline, training and review trials were implemented using an alternating treatments design. Daily probes were conducted to assess maintenance, stimulus generalization, and response generalization, and data were collected on spontaneous usage of either language system throughout the school day. Results showed that students required approximately four times as many trials to acquire Bliss symbols as iconic pictures, and that students maintained a higher percentage of iconic pictures. Stimulus generalization occurred in both language systems, while the number of correct responses during responses generalization probes was much greater for the iconic system. Finally, students almost always showed more iconic responses than Bliss responses in daily spontaneous usage. These results suggest that an iconic system might be more readily acquired, maintained, and generalized to daily situations. Implications of these findings for the newly verbal person were discussed.