Performing newly acquired skills over time (i.e., maintenance) and across settings and stimuli (i.e., generalization) is central to what students need to accomplish in preparation for life beyond the classroom. Students, including those with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), need opportunities to practice for the purposes of maintaining…

Using an ABAB withdrawal design, the study evaluated the direct and generalized effects of a combined independent and interdependent group contingency on the engagement and disruptive behavior of two groups of students enrolled in an alternative school serving students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Class 1 included seven middle school…

Group contingencies are an effective way to prevent and address problem behavior; however, the extent to which these effects transfer to settings where the intervention is not implemented (i.e., setting generalization) is unknown. Using a multiple baseline design, this study assessed the setting generalization of the effects of an interdependent…

Coprophagia, the ingestion of fecal matter, occurs among some individuals with developmental disabilities and is associated with a variety of health risks (e.g., diarrhea, intestinal parasites, blood-borne pathogens; Parry-Jones & Parry-Jones, 1992). Studies that have evaluated operant-based treatments of coprophagia have been limited by a lack of…

The Check in/Check out (CICO) strategy is a secondary tier intervention designed to address those students who are not responsive to universal tier, school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (SW-PBIS), and require more targeted support. The present study extended the implementation of the CICO strategy to a residential facility.…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a training designed to increase early childhood teachers' use of specific praise statements to address problem behaviors demonstrated by children at risk for emotional/behavioral disorders. A multiple-baseline across-participants design was employed to examine the teachers' use of specific praise…

The impact of undesirable competing behaviors on maintenance and generalization of desirable behaviors by two 8 year-olds with severe developmental disabilities was examined. Desired behaviors were often replaced by less desirable behaviors which served the same function within maintenance and/or generalization situations. (Author/CL)

The paper proposes a model which combines traditional metacognitive explanations for the acquisition of social skills in behaviorally disordered adolescents with situationally specific environment variables. Research is reported suggesting that newly learned social skills may not generalize to a wider variety of real life situations because social…

A study used the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities to assess the abilities of three adults with mental retardation in order to reduce aberrant behavior. There was a higher frequency of aberrant responses during training sessions with training tasks above or below a participant's assessment level on the test. (Contains references.) (CR)

The use of operant procedures was extended to decrease immediate echolalia and increase appropriate responding to questions of a 21-year-old autistic man. Multiple baseline designs demonstrated that echolalia was rapidly replaced with correct stimulus-specific responses. A variety of generalized improvements were observed in verbal responses to…

Thirty-two studies, involving 47 discrete experiments, are reviewed on the application of overcorrection to management of self-injurious behavior in intellectually handicapped individuals. The literature supports short-term efficacy of overcorrection. Reservations include the intrusive and restrictive nature of the technique and limited data on…

This study evaluated a multicomponent treatment package with three adults having profound mental retardation who engaged in self-injurious hand mouthing. The intervention, which involved brief response interruption followed by the introduction of a preferred leisure item, was successfully implemented during both individual and small group…

We trained parents to conduct functional analyses (n = 25) and functional communication training (n = 23) in home settings over a four-year period with 25 young children who had developmental and behavioural disorders. For 12 of the children, pre-treatment (baseline) probes and post-treatment stimulus condition probes were conducted to assess…

Dimensions characteristically descriptive of applied behavior analysis over the past 20 years are explored: applied, behavioral, analytic, conceptual, technological, effective, and capable of appropriately generalized outcomes. Effectiveness in the future must take into account cost-benefit ratios, social validity assessments, and the need for…

The study examined the effects of instruction in new behavior on behavioral change in behaviorally or emotionally handicapped students by comparing Ifd (intensity, frequency, and duration) behavior scores of students who received special behavioral instruction (N=360) with students not receiving this instruction (N=360). The study also…