Teachers are responsible for providing an education to students of all ability levels. Recent data suggest that roughly 95% of students with a disability are receiving some form of education in their general education setting. Individuals with disabilities tend to engage in higher levels of disruptive behaviors (e.g., talking out in class,…

Sleep problems are a common occurrence among children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In addition to the adverse effects that sleep problems present for children's neurodevelopment, learning, and daytime behaviors, these sleep problems also present significant challenges for the entire family. This article outlines the results of a…

When students display disruptive behaviors, it interferes with their own, and other students' learning and with the teacher's ability to instruct during academic activities. This study investigated the effects of a classwide interdependent group contingency on the on/off-task behaviors of an at-risk student in a first-grade classroom in a private…

Disruptive behaviors displayed in the classroom interfere with learning by taking time away from academic instruction. This study investigated the effects of randomizing components within an interdependent group contingency for group disruptive behavior and engagement levels of 26 students in a second-grade classroom in an urban Midwestern school.…

We evaluated a treatment for elopement maintained by access to stereotypic door play. First, we conducted a functional analysis of elopement that produced undifferentiated results. Next, we conducted an assessment in which we evaluated the relation between elopement and door play. Results suggested a functional relation between the 2 behaviors…

Teacher referrals for consultation resulted in two independent teams collecting evidence that allowed for a treatment component evaluation of color wheel (CW) procedures and/or interdependent group-oriented reward (IGOR) procedures on inappropriate vocalizations in one third- and one first-grade classroom. Both studies involved the application of…

The effectiveness of various management strategies has been of central concern in academic and educational debates on the role and nature of classroom discipline. Educational theorists and researchers have put forth a range of different models, each of which incorporates the use of a number of strategies. This article reports on a study that seeks…

This article reviews evidence from basic and translational research with pigeons and humans suggesting that the persistence of operant behavior depends on the contingency between stimuli and reinforcers, and considers some implications for clinical interventions. (Contains 4 figures.)

The value of a reinforcer may change based on antecedent events, specifically the behavior of others (Bruzek & Thompson, 2007). In the current study, we examined the effects of manipulating the behavior of the therapist on problem behavior while all dimensions of reinforcement were held constant. Both participants' levels of problem behaviors…

The current study evaluated the effects of tokens delivered on differential reinforcement of zero-rate behavior (DRO) schedules or noncontingently on tic suppression in 4 children with tics. Tic frequency was lower in 3 of 4 children when tokens were delivered contingent on the absence of tics than when tokens were delivered noncontingently.…

Factors that influence reinforcer choice have been examined in a number of applied studies (e.g., Neef, Mace, Shea, & Shade, 1992; Shore, Iwata, DeLeon, Kahng, & Smith, 1997; Tustin, 1994). However, no applied studies have evaluated the effects of postsession reinforcement on choice between concurrently available reinforcers, even though basic…

Children may recruit their teachers' attention at undesirably high rates or at inconvenient times. Tiger and Hanley (2004) described a multiple-schedule procedure to reduce ill-timed requests, which involved providing children with two distinct continuous signals that were correlated with periods in which teacher attention was either available or…

The study found that in the absence of a history of negative consequences, an all-positive management system for eight first- through third-grade children with academic and/or classroom behavioral problems was not sufficient to maintain on-task rates of academic accuracy. The addition of negative consequences immediately improved on-task behavior…

Previous studies have shown that presession attention for problem behavior can serve as an abolishing operation when attention functions as a positive reinforcer. In the current study, we show that the stereotypy of a child with severe disabilities was undifferentiated during standard analogue functional analysis conditions. However, when…

The study evaluated the effectiveness of superimposition and subsequent removal of a schedule of continuous reinforcement (CRF) as a rate-decreasing procedure in efforts to eliminate unwanted behaviors. Examination of lever-pressing patterns of eight male rats showed responding was substantially reduced during the superimposition of CRF but…