Individuals with deaf-blindness and co-occurring diagnoses, such as intellectual and developmental disabilities, may experience difficulty with independence, specifically with communication. One behavior-analytic procedure that may be useful for increasing independence and teaching communication to this population is the behavior-chain…

Differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) is a commonly used reinforcement-based system for reducing problem behavior. DRO systems are particularly useful in that they are effective for the treatment of maladaptive behavior and can be individualized based on the needs of the learner. One possible way to enhance the effectiveness of DRO…

Functional communication training (FCT) is an effective intervention for teaching communication responses and reducing challenging behavior. One limitation of FCT is that frequent reinforcement may be impractical or impossible in many situations. Recently, Mitteer et al. published a tutorial in the journal "AAC" that provided video…

In 2020 the Centers for Disease Control provided the public with recommendations to slow the spread of COVID-19 by wearing a mask in the community. In the current study, experimenters coached group home staff via telehealth to implement synchronous schedules of reinforcement to increase mask wearing for 5 adults with intellectual and developmental…

Misophonia is characterized by an autonomic response (e.g., increased heart rate) that is elicited by certain innocuous or repetitive sounds, and individuals with misophonia may display an extreme, overt response commonly associated with rage, hatred, and a loss of self-control. In this investigation, we used a combined respondent and operant…

Background: Needle phobias are common in children and adults worldwide. One effective intervention for this phobia is exposure therapy where a participant is gradually exposed to increasing levels of the fear-evoking stimulus while differential reinforcement is applied. This intervention, however, may be difficult to implement with some medical…

A primary goal of behavioral interventions is to reduce dangerous or inappropriate behavior and to generalize treatment effects across various settings. However, there is a lack of research evaluating generalization of treatment effects while individuals with functionally equivalent problem behavior interact with each other. For the current study,…

Background: Fear of medical procedures in general and needles in particular can be a difficult clinical challenge to providing effective health care for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Methods: A changing criterion design was used to examine graduated exposure treatment for blood-injury-injection phobia in an adult…

This case report concerns a woman with intellectual disability, schizoaffective disorder, and avoidance and refusal of having her blood drawn. She required but refused blood draws to properly monitor the therapeutic dose of a necessary psychotropic medication. During intervention at a community-based habilitation setting and under simulated…

The least-restrictive-alternative guideline for providing treatment emphasizes the use of non-aversive procedures to reduce maladaptive behaviors in individuals with intellectual disability (ID). Differential reinforcement (DR) is an excellent example of such a non-aversive, reinforcement based behavioral intervention. The purpose of this…

This study assessed the effects of a contingency management (CM) intervention for alcohol consumption in 10 alcohol-dependent participants. An ABCA design was used. Vouchers were provided contingent on results of ethyl glucuronide (EtG) urine tests (an alcohol biomarker with a 2-day detection period) and alcohol breath tests during the C phase.…

An experiment with adult humans investigated the effects of response-contingent money loss (response-cost punishment) on monetary-reinforced responding. A yoked-control procedure was used to separate the effects on responding of the response-cost contingency from the effects of reduced reinforcement density. Eight adults pressed buttons for money…

Participants earned points by pressing a computer space bar (Experiment 1) or forming rectangles on the screen with the mouse (Experiment 2) under differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedules, followed by extinction. Variability in interresponse time (the contingent dimension) increased during extinction, as for Morgan and Lee (1996);…

Background: Having an objective means of evaluating the quality of behaviour support plans (BSPs) could assist service providers and statutory authorities to monitor and improve the quality of support provided to people with intellectual disability (ID) who exhibit challenging behaviour. The Behaviour Support Plan Quality Evaluation Guide II…

Stereotypical behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement often does not result in harm but may be undesirable in some situations. In the current investigation, participants were 2 individuals who engaged in nonharmful stereotypical responses shown in an analogue functional analysis to be insensitive to social contingencies. After bringing…