The experimenter conducted three experiments to compare incidental language acquisition of familiar and non-familiar stimuli, and asses the effects of specific pairing experiences on the emergence of bidirectional naming (BiN) for familiar and non-familiar stimuli. In Experiment I the experimenter assessed the numbers of accurate untaught listener…

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display stimulus overselectivity, wherein a subset of relevant components in a compound stimulus controls responding, which impairs discrimination learning. The original experimental research on stimulus overselectivity in ASD was conducted several decades ago; however, interventions for…

Millions of Americans are diagnosed with dementia, and that number is only expected to rise. The diagnosis of dementia comes with impairments, especially in language. Furthermore, dementia-related functional declines appear to be moderated by environmental variables (Alzheimer's Association, "Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the…

Brief experimental analysis (BEA) is a useful tool for quickly evaluating intervention strategies for individuals with academic deficits and minor behavior problems. However, there is a lack of research investigating BEA for intervention strategies with individuals who emit severe problem behavior to avoid academic demands. For the current study,…

Background: Behavioural interventions conceptualise self-injurious behaviour (SIB) as developing from early repetitive behaviours through acquisition of homeostatic functions in regulating stimulation and subsequent shaping into SIB through socially mediated or automatic operant reinforcement. Despite high success rates, such interventions rarely…

Excessively devaluing delayed reinforcers co-occurs with a wide variety of clinical conditions such as drug dependence, obesity, and excessive gambling. If excessive delay discounting is a trans-disease process that underlies the choice behavior leading to these and other negative health conditions, efforts to change an individual's discount rate…

A popular-press self-help manual is reviewed with an eye toward two issues. First, the popularity of such books documents the existence of considerable demand for technologies that address the everyday problems (in the present case, troublesome conversations) of nondisordered individuals. Second, many ideas invoked in popular-press books may be…

Top-ranked items were identified during 30-min free-operant preference assessments for 9 individuals. Data from each session were analyzed to identify the item (a) that was engaged with first in each session and (b) to which the most responding was allocated after 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 20 min, and 25 min had elapsed in each session. The results…

This article introduces the concept of motivating operation (MO) to the field of online consumer research. A conjoint analysis was conducted to assess the motivating impact of antecedent stimuli on online purchasing. Stimuli tested were in-stock status, price, other customers' reviews, order confirmation procedures, and donation to charity. The…

This article reviews evidence from basic and translational research with pigeons and humans suggesting that the persistence of operant behavior depends on the contingency between stimuli and reinforcers, and considers some implications for clinical interventions. (Contains 4 figures.)

This study sought to further investigate the effects of an observational intervention for two participants on the reinforcing property of pieces of string. Pre-observational intervention data showed that the neutral stimuli (strings) did not function to reinforce two participants' responding to a performance task or learning three new skills that…

The effects of errorless discrimination training (Sulzer and Mayer) on visual and auditory discrimination of digraphs of a learning disabled eight-year-old female resulted in a successful technique for digraph discrimination. (Author/PN)

Available from: Sage Publications, Inc., 275 South Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, California 90212. Presented are guidelines for the identification of target behaviors and suitable intervention techniques by therapists using behavior modification techniques. (IM)

This report is an attempt to analyze the aggression which occurs within extended dyadic interchanges of parent and child, husband and wife, or sibling and peers. An argument is made for a "performance" theory of children's noxious behaviors based on the assumption that most children, exposed to modeling and reinforcing contingencies through which…