The ability of a reinforcer to maintain behavior decreases as a hyperbolic function of its delay. This discounted value can help explain impulsivity defined as the choice of an immediate, small reinforcer over a delayed, large reinforcer. Human operant studies using consumable reinforcers such as videos have found impulsivity with delays under 1…

Resurgence refers to the recovery of previously extinguished responding when a recently reinforced response is extinguished. Although the topic of resurgence has received limited experimental attention, there recently have been an increased number of investigations involving the topic. This increased experimental attention also has been…

Classroom management is a critical skill area. Teachers should be trained and supported in implementing practices that are likely to be successful; that is, practices that are backed by evidence. The purpose of this paper is to describe the outcomes of a systematic literature search conducted to identify evidence-based classroom management…

Guidelines are offered for dealing with noncompliant behavior in severely handicapped students. Eight steps in developing interventions for such behaviors are listed, and three are dealt with in detail: defining noncompliance, establishing causes for non compliance, and providing a number of interventions for each cause. Noncompliance is viewed…

Timeout, a widely used approach with severely handicapped and deaf blind students, is nevertheless potentially aversive and should not become a routine procedure. The decision to employ timeout from positive reinforcement should be based on careful consideration of the child's behavior, the severity of the target behavior, and the need for…

Effects of model status and offender type on imitation of self-reward criteria were examined. Immature-inadequate and gang-oriented offenders viewed videotapes of models who were either stringent or liberal in self-reward criteria and were either staff members or peers. Subjects viewing the liberal model rewarded themselves more. (Author)

Six mildly to severely mentally retarded 10- to 16-year-olds were given 10 to 45 minutes of interpolated reinforcement (additional to existing unplanned reinforcement) for target behavior that interfered with habilitation. When the interpolated reinforcement was discontinued, the forms of responding returned to those of initial baseline and the…

Two experiments with four autistic children (ages 5-13) demonstrated that reinforcement of appropriate toy play was an effective means of reducing disruptive behaviors of autistic children in unsupervised settings. (Author/DB)

Parents and teachers can cooperate by requiring that behavior problem children successfully complete an activity of low priority (nonpreferred) to them before participating in a high priority (preferred) one. The daily report approach documents the way in which school behavior can be linked to access to home or community activities. (CL)

Reviews individual and group studies describing the application of behavior therapy techniques to the management of 41 electively mute children. Updates previous reviews of treatment techniques, examines criteria influencing application of specific techniques to individual children, and evaluates evidence as to relative effectiveness of different…

Arguments are reviewed for and against the use of food and drink as reinforcers in school based programs for severely handicapped students. A set of guidelines is proposed. The focus is on compatibility with children's long-range educational, health, and social goals. (Author/SW)

The paper stresses that, in teaching language handicapped children, the natural reinforcement of language as means of communication, of obtaining wants, is of more value than reinforcers (such as candy) often used in clinical settings. (PHR)

The experiment assessed, within a multiple baseline design, the possibility of improving the learning of three autistic children (4 to 7 years old) by changing arbitrary response-reinforcer relationships so that the target behaviors became functional (i.e., a direct part of the response chain required for the child to procure the reinforcer).…

Four levels of the behavior constraint-reinforcement variable were manipulated: attractive reward, unattractive reward, request to perform, and a no-reward control. Only the unattractive reward and request groups showed the performance decrements that suggest the overjustification effect. It is concluded that reinforcement does not cause the…

To identify the most potent reinforcers for 10 young children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the relative treatment utility of a verbal forced-choice questionnaire, child nomination, and direct observation was evaluated. Results demonstrated that all three methods were more likely to disagree than agree and that a forced-choice…