Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities最新文献

Because some mentally retarded and autistic children are unresponsive to positive events such as edibles and praise, their performance during educational activities is often sporadic. Such children are often labelled as being noncompliant or difficult to motivate. A negative reinforcement procedure plus edibles and praise was compared with edibles and praise alone as a method of increasing correct responding on discrimination tasks by four such children. In both conditions, a child was given an edible and praise when the correct response occurred within 2 s of a therapist's verbal prompt. The aversive stimulus used in the negative reinforcement procedure consisted of guiding the child through the correct response 20 times when no response occured with 2 s. The negative reinforcement procedure plus edibles and praise produced about 90% correct responding for all the children, while edibles and praise alone were much less effective. The use of a negative reinforcement procedure with noncompliant or difficult to motivate behaviorally disordered children appears to be an effective method of increasing their instruction-following.

Within a multiple baseline across behaviors design, four hearing impaired children who initially omitted final consonants in words were taught to produce final |k| and |v| in a contrast training procedure. Generalization of the two sounds and their cognates, the |g| and |f|, was tested to items consisting of spontaneously produced single words (naming pictures) and the same words in sentences read by the children. Results showed that the children generalized both final target sounds to a high degree in both contexts. Some generalization also occurred to the cognates which had never been trained. Although individual variability was observed, data showed that the |v| generalized to a greater number of items than the |k|, and possibly, required less training. Generalization to the |f| items was also better than to the |g| items. Response patterns suggested that final consonant production had been thoroughly acquired since variables that could have disrupted or interfered with generalization had no effect on the children's performance.

Agitated—disruptive behavior such as cursing, hitting, kicking, throwing objects, and verbal threats from three mentally retarded residents From community group homes was reduced using procedures that included a self-recorded DRO, point fines for agitated—disruptive behavior, social skills training, and relaxation training. The agitated-disruptive behavior of all three subjects was markedly reduced as a result of the use of these procedures in combination. Further, with all subjects, the self-recorded DRO appeared to be critical to the effectiveness of the treatment program. Although subjects did not self-record accurately when they displayed agitated—disruptive behavior, the self-recording appeared to be effective in recruiting social approval from others in the environment when a specified period of time had passed without the occurence of agitated—disruptive behavior.

A multiple-baseline design across behaviors was used to evaluate the extent to which direct instruction alone and direct instruction plus a self-monitoring checklist are effective in promoting the transfer of “neat-paper” skills to written assignments produced in nontraining settings. Direct instruction on nine skills necessary to produce a neat paper was provided to 15 resource-room students over a period of six weeks. Results indicate that direct instruction alone was generally insufficient to promote the transfer of acquired neat-paper skills to students' written assignments in other academic periods of the day. Introduction of a self-monitoring checklist, however, facilitated this transfer, resulting in pronounced improvement in the neatness of students' papers.

The use of “mediational” or “orienting” responses has been shown to increase the effectiveness of matching-to-sample procedures. The present study compared the effectiveness of a standard prompting procedure (stimulus-delay) and that same procedure with an intervening response of naming the target stimulus prior to responding. Four developmentally disabled adults were taught two sets of symbols placed on flashcards. The teacher named a symbol and the subject was required to point to the corresponding card. The two teaching methods were used in a counterbalanced order between subjects and symbol groups. Acquisition rates were similar for both methods. However, two subjects showed a larger deterioration of performance under the intervening response condition at a 9-month retention check.

An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of a self-management treatment package on the productivity of mentally retarded clients attending a sheltered workshop. The package comprised self-monitoring, self-administered reinforcement, and performance feedback. An ABA reversal design revealed that the procedures significantly increased the production rate of the clients.

Questions pertaining to the long term maintenance of the suppression of the maladaptive behaviors of institutionalized residents were addressed. To do so, a retrospective analysis of the progress of eight subjects who had been successfully treated by overcorrection procedures ten years earlier was conducted via an exhaustive review of the clients' records, direct observations, and interviews with staff. The findings can be summarized as follows: 1) The maladaptive behaviors of the highest functioning individuals, i.e., those with expressive language, showed the longest term and best suppression. 2) The more time that passes, the less likely it is that the original successful program will be reinstated when the misbehavior reoccurs. 3) The suppression of certain maladaptive behaviors may be especially difficult to maintain. 4) Overcorrection programs appear to inhibit staff from maintaining them because of their complexity and inherent time and effort requirements. 5) Staff and the institution tend to return to the status quo after the expert leaves, especially when the treated clients are low functioning. A number of suggestions are offered on how to design programs to increase the likelihood that response suppression will be maintained in an institution.