Sustained responding under intermittent reinforcement in psychotic children

A procedure is described that classifies abnormal children with respect to their capacity to sustain adaptive responding without consistent, extrinsic reinforcement. The procedure was used to assess individual differences in tolerance for intermittent reinforcement among a group of 21 psychotic children. The procedure was found to correlate with three variables established by previous research to be important prognostically-i.e., measures of intelligence, social competence, and language functioning. Findings are discussed with respect to the construct of motivation as distinguished from the construct of ability. It is suggested that whether or not the experimental measure is regarded as relevant to the global construct of motivation, it has clear relevance to potential deficits in the important capacity to sustain adaptive responding.Funding for this study and for the development of the computer-operated laboratory was provided by the USOE, Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, as a portion of Grant Number C007604305, Sensory discrimination, Generalization and Language Training of Autistic Children, awarded to R. L. Blanton and C. W. Deckner. Appreciation is expressed to S. A. Soraci, Jr., and A. A. Baumeister for valuable suggestions regarding this study.