ATTENTION TRAINING: THE USE OF OVERCORRECTION AVOIDANCE TO INCREASE THE EYE CONTACT OF AUTISTIC AND RETARDED CHILDREN

A crucial first step in teaching and training the retarded and autistic is to develop and maintain eye contact with the therapist. Functional movement training (an overcorrection procedure) plus edibles and praise were compared with edibles and praise alone as a method of developing eye contact in three such children. In both conditions, the child was given food and praise when eye contact occurred within 5 sec of the therapist's verbal prompt: “Look at me.” Functional movement training avoidance plus edibles and praise produced about 90% attention for the three children, while edibles and praise alone were less effective (eye contact never exceeded 55%). Functional movement training avoidance combined with edibles and praise appears to be an effective method of teaching eye contact and possibly other forms of instruction-following to behaviorally disordered children who are not always responsive to positive consequences.     

PARENTAL TRAINING OF THE PLURAL MORPHEME IN NORMAL TODDLERS1

Experimental studies with young normal children can provide useful strategy for the functional analysis of language. Research by Whitehurst (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1972, 13 , 502–515) exemplifies this approach, in which 2-yr-old children were exposed to a training procedure that involved imitation and differential reinforcement for a two-word productive sequence of the adjective-noun form. Results indicated that these young children could be trained to produce rudimentary novel utterances that were grammatically appropriate. More recently, Hursh and Sherman (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1973, 15 , 328–339) reported the existence of a functional relationship between parental modelling and reinforcement of vocalizations, and increased instances of these vocalizations in young (15- to 20-month-old) children. These demonstrations relate to a summary of findings with linguistically deviant populations discussed by Sherman (Advances in Child Development, 1971). The present study attempts to extend these “generative” investigations to normal children and to provide useful information for those interested in teaching speech forms to them. Modelling and differential reinforcement were used by three mothers to establish the use of the plural morpheme in the speech of their 19- to 25-month-old children. During training trials, verbal praise was presented contingent on correct labelling of singular and plural items, while correct labelling was modelled if the child responded incorrectly. Children learned to label specifically trained sets of singular and plural items and also exhibited correct labelling when asked to label never-trained singular and plural items. After establishing correct usage, the same training procedures were used to train reversed labelling (plural responses to single items and singular responses to plural items). This produced a corresponding reversal of responding (both trained and untrained items) by each child for the plural items but not for singular items. Correct singular and plural labelling was recovered by returning to the initial procedures.     

STIMULUS SELECTION AND TRACKING DURING URINATION: AUTOSHAPING DIRECTED BEHAVIOR WITH TOILET TARGETS1

A simple procedure is described for investigating stimuli selected as targets during urination in the commode. Ten normal males preferred a floating target that could be tracked to a series of stationary targets. This technique was used to bring misdirected urinations in a severely retarded male under rapid stimulus control of a floating target in the commode. The float stimulus was also evaluated with nine institutionalized, moderately retarded males and results indicated rapid autoshaping of directed urination without the use of verbal instructions or conventional toilet training. The technique can be applied in training children to control misdirected urinations in institutions for the retarded, in psychiatric wards with regressed populations, and in certain male school dormitories.     

A SIMULTANEOUS DISCRIMINATION PROCEDURE FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF VISION IN NONVERBAL CHILDREN1

Few nonverbal developmentally disabled children ever receive adequate vision assessment because of their limited language skills. The present study details a simultaneous discrimination procedure for measuring subjective visual acuity in such children. A stimulus fading procedure was used to train a discrimination between Snellen Es differing in orientation, and a psychophysical tracking method was used to determine acuity thresholds. The procedure was tested with 11 nonverbal autistic and schizophrenic children and validated with four nonpsychotic children. Eight of the psychotic children were successfully examined in one to three sessions. Two of these children were identified as having significant acuity losses. The validity assessment showed that the experimental procedure resulted in thresholds equal to or slightly lower than those obtained with the Illiterate E chart.     

The role of preliminary magazine training in acquisition of the autoshaped key peck

A series of experiments tested the hypothesis that initial key pecks in the autoshaping procedure are generalized pecks at the illuminated grain hopper. Experiment I found that autoshaping readily occurred when the chamber was continuously illuminated by a house-light. In Experiment II, pigeons given magazine training and autoshaping with an unlighted grain hopper failed to autoshape in 200 trials. Acquisition of autoshaped key pecking was retarded in Experiment III when stimulus control by the magazine light was reduced. In the fourth study, pigeons were given magazine training with either a red or white magazine light and then given autoshaping with concurrently presented red and white keys. For all pigeons in this experiment, the first key peck occurred on the key of the same color as that pigeon's magazine light. The results of these experiments were interpreted as supporting an account of autoshaping that identifies initial key pecks as arising due to generalization of pecking at the lighted grain hopper to pecking at the lighted key.     

Stimulus- and response-reinforcer contingencies in autoshaping, operant, classical, and omission training procedures in rats

Separate groups of rats received 500 trials of lever-press training under autoshaping (food delivery followed 10-second lever presentations, or occurred immediately following a response); operant conditioning (responding was necessary for food delivery); and classical conditioning (food followed lever presentations regardless of responding). Each group then received 500 trials on an omission procedure in which food was omitted on trials with a response. Another group received 1000 trials on the omission procedure, and a fifth group, random control, received 1000 uncorrelated presentations of lever and food. The autoshaping, operant, and classical groups reached high response levels by the end of initial training. Acquisition was fastest in the autoshaping group. Responding remained consistently low in the control group. The omission group responded at a level between the control group and the other three groups. During omission training, responding in these three groups declined to the omission-group level. During omission training, the rats continued contacting the lever frequently after lever pressing had declined. Response maintenance under omission training seems not to require topographic similarity between the response and reinforcer-elicited consummatory behaviors.     

COMMUNICATION SKILLS TRAINING FOR PARENTS: EXPERIMENTAL AND SOCIAL VALIDATION

Coordination of professional services on behalf of children often hinges on the involvement of informed parents. The purposes of this study were to identify and experimentally and socially validate skills required of parents for effective communication with professionals. Target skills were identified on the basis of judges' social validation ratings of (a) sample interactions between parents and professionals and (b) the behaviors comprising a resultant task analysis. Eight parents were then trained in these skills via an instructional package. Results of a multiple baseline design across subjects and grouped skill domains showed that each parent acquired the targeted skills during simulated conferences and that correct responding usually generalized to actual conferences. Independent judges validated training outcomes, and participating parents indicated satisfaction with the curriculum.     

CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING WITH DELINQUENTS: EFFECTS OF A BRIEF TRAINING MANUAL ON STAFF CONTRACT NEGOTIATION AND WRITING SKILLS

A brief training manual was developed for the purpose of teaching child-care workers to contingency contract with delinquent youths living in residential care facilities. The manual was designed to require minimal supplementary training by a professional. In Experiment 1 a multiple baseline design was used to assess the effect of the manual on 4 child-care workers' contract negotiation and writing behaviors. Experiment 2 consisted of four A-B systematic replications. Behaviors were assessed within the context of analogue training simulations and generalization tests with delinquent youths. Results from the analogue simulations indicated that the manual was successful in increasing both types of behaviors to a level of proficiency that equaled or surpassed that of behaviorally trained graduate students, and results from the generalization tests indicated that the child-care workers were able to apply their newly acquired contracting skills with delinquent youths. Procedural reliability varied across child-care workers, but was usually high.     

On the functional role of the verbalization in correspondence training procedures

We investigated the functional role of the child's and experimenter's verbalizations in correspondence training procedures with toy play behaviors in a day-care center setting. Six children participated in a multiple baseline across responses and/or multielement design. Baseline conditions were followed by reinforcement of verbalization. This resulted in little or no change in responding, similar to findings of previous research. Experiment I isolated the child's verbalization as the variable under study. With an experimenter's prompt and postplay reinforcement held constant, the effects of including versus omitting the child's verbalization were examined. A contingency-space analysis revealed that the presence or absence of the child's verbalization exerted no influence on play with the target toy. In Experiment II, a condition in which no experimenter's prompt occurred was added. Results suggested that the complete absence of any antecedent verbalization, by child or experimenter, resulted in much lower rates of play with the target toys. Again, however, when the experimenter's prompt was included, no clear difference was noted between conditions in which the child verbalized and conditions in which the child did not. These results raise doubts about the commonly held view of correspondence training procedures as a method of promoting self-regulation.     

The effects of a variety of instructions on human fixed-interval performance

College students were instructed to press a button for points under a single reinforcement schedule or under a variety of reinforcement schedules. Instructions for a single schedule were either specific or minimal. Instructions on a variety of schedules involved specific instructions on eight different schedules of reinforcement. Subsequent to the varied training, responding under a fixed-interval schedule occurred at a low rate. Both the minimal and specific instruction training led to fixed-interval responding that was similar to the responding exhibited during training. These findings suggest that under certain conditions instructed behavior is sensitive to changes in contingencies.