Monitoring the collateral effects of leisure skill instruction: a case study in multiple-baseline methodology

Generalized Reduction of Disruptive Behavior in Unsupervised Settings through Specific Toy Training

This study was designed to achieve a reduction of disruptive behaviors in unsupervised settings through reinforcement of appropriate play behaviors in students with autism. In Experiment 1, two students were exposed to training consisting of differential reinforcement of appropriate play, verbal feedback and prompts for inappropriate play or disruptive behaviors, and a specific toy training condition which involved extrinsic reinforcement of specific components of toy play. This training resulted in decreases in disruptive behaviors accompanied by generalization and maintenance of appropriate play in an unsupervised setting. In a second experiment, two additional children exposed to the specific toy training procedure showed similar decreases in disruptive behaviors accompanied by generalization and maintenance of play skills. The results show that reinforcement of appropriate toy play is an effective means of reducing disruptive behaviors in unsupervised settings in children with autism.

Moving to Educational Validity: A Reply to Test, Spooner, and Cooke

Our article on educational validity summarized the major questions to be addressed for the evaluation of educational outcomes in programs for students with severe disabilities (Voeltz & Evans, 1983). In particular, we argued that the predominant emphasis upon single-subject research designs and the demonstration of the internal validity of intervention experiments were not sufficient for educational validity—a concept that requires systematic attention to larger issues of meaning-fulness in relationship to criterion environments. In this paper we respond to the arguments of Test, Spooner, and Cooke (1987) that single-subject design methodologies are capable of expansion to address educational validity. Based upon both theory and empirical data, we maintain that the serious limitations of the existing traditional methodologies continue to be problematic, so that we encourage movement toward a more comprehensive evaluative framework. Such a framework is critical to ensure that services and practices for persons with severe disabilities will be guided by research findings as well as social values.

Science and Practice in Behavioral Intervention: Meaningful Outcomes, Research Validity, and Usable Knowledge

Many professional journals publish research reports of interventions for persons with developmental disabilities which traditionally have been expected to fulfill two quite different functions. First, this research literature is the scientific data base to support the validity of recommended most promising practices. Second, these same reports are expected to be a source of information to guide the efforts of practitioners to implement those most promising practices. In a parallel fashion, the experimental method has been used both to test intervention hypotheses in research studies and as an evaluation model for practitioners in evaluating applications in typical settings. This paper explores the extent to which it is reasonable or practical to expect conventional experimental methodologies and research reports to perform this dual purpose. Recommendations are made for research and practice that require multiple perspectives and approaches better suited to a human science.

The Use of a Positive Procedure to Increase Engagement On-Task and Decrease Challenging Behavior

The exhibition of stereotypic and self-injurious behavior (SIB) combined with a lack of work engagement makes it very difficult to place a person with severe disabilities in an integrated work environment. The purpose of this research was to examine use of a positive procedure to increase engagementon-task and reduce self-injurious slapping and stereotypicclo the smanipulation by a 46-year-old man with severe disabilities. A single-subject research design was used to examine the effects of the combined DRA-DRO (differential reinforcement of alternative behavior-differential reinforcement of other behavior) procedure in fostering more appropriate behavior. Following 30 years of institutionalization, the man was successfully integrated into community-based employment.

Functional Independence of Appropriate Giving and Appropriate Asking for Socially Isolated and Nondisabled Children

Sharing is an important social behaviour for promoting reciprocal interaction and interactive play among peers, but previous studies have only trained giving and accepting behaviours. We trained appropriate asking in addition to giving, and tested for functional independence. Three socially isolated children were first trained either to ask appropriately for their turn with a toy, or else to offer the toy to a confederate child, and this was reversed after stability. There was an immediate increase in whichever behaviour was trained, but the other behaviour showed no increase until it was directly trained. This was replicated with two nondisabled children. Follow-up assessments on all five children showed some maintenance up to a month after training. These studies demonstrate that appropriate giving and asking are functionally independent, at least in this experimental setting; that this is not restricted to socially isolated children; and that asking does not emerge from training giving alone. It was argued that, while these results could be due to instructional control rather than the more natural consequences of sharing, such social rules or norms are typically taught as instructions from teachers and parents.

A Multi-Dimensional Model for Conceptualizing the Design of Child Behavior Therapy

Four dimensions thought to be basic to all child behavior therapy are specified. These are: (a) manipulation of the consequences of inappropriate behavior; (b) short-term prevention by ecological change; (c) teaching more appropriate alternatives and (d) long-term prevention by remedying more fundamental behavioral deficits. It is proposed that all four dimensions are needed for the design of any clinical treatment. The model therefore illustrates how ostensibly opposing intervention strategies in behavior therapy are really complementary. Since children's clinical problems rarely occur as isolated behaviors, and since behavioral psychotherapy involves development of more adaptive skills that influence the target problems indirectly, the dimensional model allows cross-referencing of the interrelated target behaviors in the child-client's repertoire. This is illustrated by describing typical intervention designs for two children with behavior problems. By formally specifying the realities of clinical treatment design, the relevance of therapy outcome research to clinical practice should be enhanced.

An analysis of maintenance following functional communication training

The multiple and long-term effects of functional communication training relative to a common reductive procedure (time-out from positive reinforcement) were evaluated. Twelve children participated in a functional analysis of their challenging behaviors (Study 1), which implicated adult attention as a maintaining variable. The children were then matched for chronological age, mental age, and language age and assigned to two groups. One group received functional communication training as an intervention for their challenging behavior, and the second group received time-out as a contrast. Both interventions were initially successful (Study 2), but durable results were achieved only with the group that received functional communication training across different stimulus conditions (Study 3). Students whose challenging behaviors were previously reduced with time-out resumed these behaviors in the presence of naive teachers unaware of the children's intervention history. The value of teaching communicative responses to promote maintenance is discussed as it relates to the concept of functional equivalence.