Students with or at-risk for emotional disturbance (ED) frequently receive interventions that include a direct manipulation of consequences. The ability of educators to identify reinforcing stimuli that may function as powerful consequences determines the success of reinforcement-based strategies. Choice-based stimulus preference assessments…

A literature review was conducted to describe important concepts involved in functional analysis of verbal behavior as well as to evaluate empirical research findings on acquisition of picture exchange-based vs. signed mands to suggest instructional implications for teachers and therapists to teach functional communication skills to children with…

Many children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) require instructional programs that simultaneously address academic content, interfering behavior, and potential gaps in prerequisite skills for a given curriculum. This study examined the impact of an intervention package consisting of contingent reinforcement and match-to-sample training on the…

The effects of deafblindness are much greater than simply combining the effects of the individual's vision loss with the effects of their hearing loss, because these senses strongly support one another (Silberman, Bruce, & Nelson, 2004). Even though most individuals have some residual vision and hearing, deafblindness limits access to the…

Schools implementing tiered supports for social behavior need to be systematic and thoughtful about moving to the next tier. However, schools often apply resources they have in a blanket fashion for children who demonstrate behavior problems. This practice is problematic, and there is a need for increased efforts to plan and be more careful about…

Schools implementing tiered supports for social behavior need to be systematic and thoughtful about moving to the next tier. However, schools often apply resources they have in a blanket fashion for children who demonstrate behavior problems. This practice is problematic, and there is a need for increased efforts to plan and be more careful about…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two kinds of reinforcements, tangible reinforcements and social reinforcements, on the academic achievement of eighth-grade female students with intellectual disabilities in the science subject. The study was an experimental method by pretest, with a control group. The participants of…

This study evaluated an intervention package combining simple and conditional discrimination training and specific reinforcement for each stimulus class in teaching reading of simple words to individuals with intellectual disabilities. In conditional discrimination training, participants matched printed words and pictures to the recorded sounds…

A brief training package consisting of pre-teaching of appropriate grocery item--gathering skills and reinforcement for appropriate behavior was used to teach a child diagnosed with autism to remain in a store and participate in shopping without exhibiting tantrums. The training package began with teaching the necessary component skills and…

The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) is an empirically validated clinical tool for assessing the learning ability of persons with intellectual disabilities and children with autism. An ABLA tester uses standardized prompting and reinforcement procedures to attempt to teach, individually, each of six tasks, called levels, to a testee,…

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of the instruction process provided through computer-assisted activity schedules in the instruction of on-schedule and role-play skills to children with autism spectrum disorder. Herein, a multiple probe design with probe conditions across participants among single subject designs was used. Four…

Research on the functional independence of verbal operants (Skinner, 1957) has demonstrated inconsistent findings. One explanation may be that these studies have not manipulated the motivating operation (MO) to facilitate the emergence of mands (Hall & Sundberg, 1987; Lamarre & Holland, 1985). In the current study, 1 participant, diagnosed with…

We examined the effects of a negative reinforcement-based treatment on the self-feeding of 1 child with food selectivity by type and texture. Self-feeding increased when the child could choose to either self-feed 1 bite of a target food or be fed 1 bite of the target food and 5 bites of another food. Possible mechanisms that underlie the…

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) are more likely to engage in inappropriate play (e.g., stereotypy, repetitive behavior) with their preferred items given as reinforcers. Considering the stereotyped behavior is a core characteristic of ASD aimed to reduce, it is necessary to identify alternative reinforcers that does not encourage…

Research has shown that reinforcing novel behaviors can increase the number of different ways that an individual behaves (Goetz & Baer, 1973; Pryor, Haag, & O'Reilly, 1969). However, it was not until more recently that researchers began to consider "variability" to be a reinforceable operant in and of itself (Neuringer, 2002). More specifically,…