Members (behaviors) of a response class are equivalent in that they produce the same functional reinforcer. Oftentimes, some members of a response class occur at higher rates than others. This can be problematic when the members that occur at high rates are socially inappropriate (e.g., self-injury, aggression, or disruption). The participant in…

Traumatic experiences early in life can contribute to the development of mood and anxiety disorders that manifest during adolescence and young adulthood. In young rats exposed to acute fear or stress, alterations in neural development can lead to enduring behavioral abnormalities. Here, we used a modified extinction intervention…

Five adolescents with autism, 5 control participants, and 4 child controls received rewards for varying their sequences of responses while playing a computer game. In preceding and following phases, rewards were provided at approximately the same rate but were independent of variability. When reinforced, variability increased significantly in all…

The investigation sought to teach a sequence of arrival behaviors to a severely mentally retarded 12-year-old child living in an institution. Withdrawal and reintroduction of the pacing prompts established that increases in independent arrival behavior were attributed to the pacing prompts. (Author/SB)

Two adolescents with severe disabilities were successfully taught pictorial communication skills using an interrupted behavior sequence strategy. The independent variable involved insertion of a typical operant instructional trial for teaching communication skills into the midst of ongoing predictable sequences of behaviors, rather than at the…

Visual screening, a mildly aversive response suppression procedure in which the child's eyes are briefly covered, was evaluated across two studies for its effectiveness in reducing topographically similar and dissimilar stereotypic behaviors of four moderately or profoundly retarded children (aged 9 or 13 years). (Author)

This paper describes a social-learning approach to counseling as it is developed at Valley View School for Boys, Illinois Department of Corrections. (Author/SM)

Predelinquent and delinquent youths were given behavior modification, social skills, and self-management training. The youths demonstrated a decrease in the number of problem behaviors exhibited at home and in school. The benefits of a self-management approach to juvenile offenders are discussed. (Author)

A study found verbal reprimands, delivered contingent upon eating prohibited foods, were sufficient to decease the food stealing of a girl (age 14) with Prader-Willi syndrome. Warning stimuli were then successfully used to help her discriminate between permitted/prohibited foods during sessions in which food stealing was not directly observed.…

Describes a community treatment program cojointly administered by a New Mexico local school district, university, and mental health center. The program is designed to facilitate the adoption of personal and academic skills among profoundly behaviorally disordered adolescents. (Author/CM)

Two experiments to replicate P. E. Touchette's findings on the delayed prompt effect, with 34 subjects having mental retardation, found more variable results, with all five of the possible outcomes occurring with some subjects. The paper concludes that successful use of the delayed prompt technique depends on such factors as difficulty of target…

A severely disabled and retarded 15-year-old girl was examined for: effect of music and approval as reinforcers for following a command; effect of a food-pairing procedure on an approval alone condition, an approval plus music condition, and an ignore condition; durability of newly conditioned reinforcers; and strength of the new reinforcers as…