Effective training programs for individuals with disabilities often involve the use of positive reinforcement. Social interactions have many benefits over other forms of reinforcement, but more research is needed to determine how to identify social interactions that serve as reinforcers. In the first experiment, we evaluated the use of two…

Conditional discrimination is inherent in the intraverbal relation when one verbal stimulus alters the evocative effect of another verbal stimulus and they collectively evoke an intraverbal response. Rarely in research on conditional discriminations have both conditional and discriminative stimuli been vocal verbal and rarely have the responses…

Conditional rates of problem behavior for weeks that followed medication decreases and no medication changes were compared for 12 individuals who exhibited severe problem behavior (e.g., self-injury, aggression). The results indicate that conditional rates of problem behavior were higher following medication decreases than following no changes in…

This paper proposes that an organism's integrated repertoire of operant behavior has the status of a biological system, similar to other biological systems, like the nervous, cardiovascular, or immune systems. Evidence from a number of sources indicates that the distinctions between biological and behavioral events is often misleading, engendering…

By watching and responding to the way a shill answered "yes-no" questions about food items, a developmentally delayed preschool boy greatly improved over his poor base-line "yes-no" answers to these same items. He was also able to give correct answers subsequently during generalization probe sessions. (PS)

This article discusses problems inherent in the analysis of automatically reinforced behaviors, which are behaviors that are maintained by operant mechanisms independent of the social environment. Four classes of treatment that are compatible with automatic reinforcement are reviewed, including manipulations of establishing operations, sensory…

This project examined whether a history of reinforced relational responding would result in derived requesting skills in 3 adults with disabilities. Participants were first taught to request preferred items using pictures; they were then taught conditional discriminations between pictures and their dictated names and between dictated names and…

The article describes a program in which paraprofessionals taught behavior modification contingency management techniques to parents of developmentally disabled children who lived beyond the range of the community residential facility. (DLS)

The process of toilet training a boy with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome is addressed. Emphasized are the joint effort of the teacher and parents, the frustration at the seeming lack of progress, the use of rewards and "positive practices," and the ultimate success of the boy's toilet training program. (JDD)

Four developmentally disabled children (ages 3-5) identified as noncompliant received a standard set of adult requests under three conditions: no reinforcement, noncontingent reinforcement, and reinforcement contingent on compliance. Among results was that the contingent reinforcement procedure produced covariation in all subjects' compliance and…

Examined were the effects of four teachers' use of a data-based behaviorally oriented planning technique on the verbal labeling performance of eight developmentally delayed children (2-5 years old). Teachers were introduced to a 10-tactic planning technique that included behaviors ranging from simply counting the number of correct and incorrect…

Two boys, ages 7 and 9, with severe developmental disabilities were taught to use requests conditionally (when desired items were proximally distant) to obtain desired snack items. Results suggest that the conditioned discriminations were established quickly and both learners generalized their conditional discriminations to other contexts.…

Five profoundly retarded males (6 to 9 years old) with clinical manifestations of autism were used to evaluate the use of operant conditioning techniques to toilet train children in an autism ward of a hospital for developmentally disturbed children. (Author/SBH)

The paper describes the referral, diagnostic, interventive, and evaluative procedures used in a self-contained behaviorally oriented noncategorical program for preschool children with speech and language impairments and other developmental delays. (CL)