The retarded child as a reinforcing agent

Operant levels of social interaction were obtained for six young retarded children. Three pairs were formed of those children having the least interaction with one another. A “generosity” response was then shaped for both Ss of a given pair in which each child learned to give a piece of candy to his partner and in turn be reinforced by E. This technique was employed with a variable interval schedule of 50 seconds whenever both children of a pair were within 3 ft of one another and were not engaging in aggressive, antisocial behavior. Two out of three dyads increased markedly in minutes of interaction and one dyad showed only slight conditioning. Extinction procedures led to a rapid decrease in social interaction and reinstatement of the reinforcement contingency again increased minutes of interaction.