A WATER-PROMPTING PROCEDURE FOR THE TREATMENT OF URINARY INCONTINENCE

Based on clinical observations of a naturally occurring phenomenon, a water-prompting procedure was used to facilitate toilet training with a 9-year-old boy with profound mental retardation. Other frequently used toilet-training procedures were either ineffective or were associated with increased self-injury. The water-prompting treatment package may increase continence by eliciting and reinforcing urination under specific stimulus conditions.     

Tests of behavior momentum in simple and multiple schedules with rats and pigeons.

Four experiments examined the relationship between rate of reinforcement and resistance to change in rats' and pigeons' responses under simple and multiple schedules of reinforcement. In Experiment 1, 28 rats responded under either simple fixed-ratio, variable-ratio, fixed-interval, or variable-interval schedules; in Experiment 2, 3 pigeons responded under simple fixed-ratio schedules. Under each schedule, rate of reinforcement varied across four successive conditions. In Experiment 3, 14 rats responded under either a multiple fixed-ratio schedule or a multiple fixed-interval schedule, each with two components that differed in rate of reinforcement. In Experiment 4, 7 pigeons responded under either a multiple fixed-ratio or a multiple fixed-interval schedule, each with three components that also differed in rate of reinforcement. Under each condition of each experiment, resistance to change was studied by measuring schedule-controlled performance under conditions with prefeeding, response-independent food during the schedule or during timeouts that separated components of the multiple schedules, and by measuring behavior under extinction. There were no consistent differences between rats and pigeons. There was no direct relationship between rates of reinforcement and resistance to change when rates of reinforcement varied across successive conditions in the simple schedules. By comparison, in the multiple schedules there was a direct relationship between rates of reinforcement and resistance to change during most tests of resistance to change. The major exception was delivering response-independent food during the schedule; this disrupted responding, but there was no direct relationship between rates of reinforcement and resistance to change in simple- or multiple-schedule contexts. The data suggest that rate of reinforcement determines resistance to change in multiple schedules, but that this relationship does not hold under simple schedules.     

The NCATE Process and behaviorally-based special education

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) has long sought to identify effective programs for teacher preparation in this country. Recently, the Council has revised its standards to be more rigorous and demanding. This revision presents new and challenging standards for the accreditation of programs preparing educators. The most problematic but most important of these new standards is the requirement of a well-articulated knowledge base supporting a program's content and processes. Development of the knowledge base statement involves the articulation of the program's philosophy, theme, model, goals, objectives, primary research base, wisdom of practice, and evaluation procedures. A behavioral model serves well in meeting these requirements, particularly since behavioral applications in education are well researched and the approach is compatible with the emphasis on specific goals and objectives and evaluation of effectiveness. Effective educational methods are available and are mostly behavioral. The articulation of the NCATE knowledge base encourages education faculty, traditionally nonbehavioral, to examine the effectiveness of their programs and to demonstrate research and professional support for content and instructional methods. A behavioral knowledge base statement appropriate for NCATE is demonstrated through examples drawn from Gonzaga University's knowledge base for special education.     

A COMPARISON OF TIME DELAY AND DECREASING PROMPT HIERARCHY STRATEGIES IN TEACHING BANKING SKILLS TO STUDENTS WITH MODERATE HANDICAPS

Four students with moderate handicaps were taught to cash checks and to use an automatic teller through either a decreasing prompt hierarchy or time delay procedure. The strategies were compared within a multielement design. Results indicated that both strategies led to the acquisition of the target tasks; however, the decreasing prompt hierarchy was more efficient. Four and 8-week follow-up probes indicated that the strategies were equally effective in producing maintenance of performance.     

PARENT EDUCATION PROJECT III: INCREASING AFFECTION AND RESPONSIVITY IN DEVELOPMENTALLY HANDICAPPED MOTHERS: COMPONENT ANALYSIS,GENERALIZATION, AND EFFECTS ON CHILD LANGUAGE

We evaluated the effects of a parent training program consisting of verbal instruction, modeling, and feedback on the affection and responsivity of 3 developmentally handicapped mothers towards their children. The results indicated the following: First, the training package increased maternal physical affection, praise, and imitation of child vocalizations. These parenting skills increased to levels found in comparison groups of nonhandicapped mothers. Second, the training package was more effective than verbal instruction alone, the latter being the predominant method presently used by social service workers. Third, most maternal gains were maintained over a 3- to 18-month follow-up period, although one mother required a reinforced maintenance procedure. Fourth, instructing mothers to generalize served to increase the generalization of newly acquired skills from play times (the training context) to child-care tasks (e.g., diapering, feeding). Fifth, teaching the parents to imitate child vocalizations was related to gains in both the frequency and quality of verbal behavior of the two language delayed children as measured by standardized developmental tests and in vivo comparisons with age-matched children (who had nonhandicapped parents). These results show that behavioral instruction can improve important child-rearing skills of developmentally handicapped mothers, with corresponding benefits to their children.     

EVALUATION OF THE GENERALIZED EFFECTS OF A PEER-TRAINING PROCEDURE WITH MODERATELY RETARDED ADOLESCENTS

The use of peer-training procedures by moderately mentally retarded adolescents was evaluated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, 2 students received instruction on peer-training skills to teach a vocational task to 7 classmates. Following instruction, both peer trainers were successful in teaching their classmates to perform the target task and a second untrained (generalization) task. In Experiment 2, 1 peer trainer taught 3 peers to use picture prompts to complete one or two complex vocational tasks. Following instruction by the peer trainer, the trainees independently used novel pictures on novel tasks. The results of both experiments indicate that peer training with moderately handicapped students can be an effective instructional procedure, with generalization occurring for both the trainers (Experiment 1) and the trainees (Experiment 2).     

Efficacy of teacher-implemented good behavior game despite low treatment integrity

The Good Behavior Game (GBG) is a well-documented group contingency designed to reduce disruptive behavior in classroom settings. However, few studies have evaluated the GBG with students who engage in severe problem behavior in alternative schools, and there are few demonstrations of training teachers in those settings to implement the GBG. In the current study, 3 teachers were trained to implement the GBG in a restrictive setting for students with histories of emotional and behavioral disorders and delinquency. The teachers used the GBG to produce substantial reductions in problem behavior despite low treatment integrity. Clinical implications and future directions for research are discussed.     

特征归纳的关联相似性模型

作者提出特征归纳的关联相似性模型,用以描述以归纳特征的关联特征相似性为基础的归纳推理,把归纳推理中相似性和关联知识统一整合起来。该模型认为归纳强度主要取决于归纳特征与关联特征的关联强度和关联特征的相似性程度的乘积,归纳信心主要取决于关联强度,从而分离归纳信心和归纳强度。以大学生为被试的两个实验的主要结果支持关联相似性模型的主要预测。关联相似性模型能够描述解释以关联特征相似性为基础的归纳推理现象,比以往的归纳理论具有更大的解释能力和解释范围     

Professional Training in Applied Psychology: Towards a Signature Pedagogy for Forensic Psychology Training

Forensic Psychology is a recognised and important sub‐specialty of the Psychology discipline. However, after an expansion in the number of training places that were offered when programmes were first developed, recent years have seen these diminish in response to changes in university policies, resulting from reformulated Federal government funding models. In this article, we argue that it is important for the future of specialist areas of professional psychology to not only articulate the core skills and competencies that are associated with specialist practice but also to develop unique and distinctive approaches to teaching and learning signature pedagogies. Based on the premise that forensic psychological practice is, indeed, a distinctive activity that requires different skills and, importantly, different ways of thinking about the work from other areas of professional psychology, it is suggested that professional training in this area should aim to develop a signature pedagogy which combines methods of teaching and learning that have been developed in legal training programmes with principles of problem‐based learning.