Evaluating preference for and reinforcing efficacy of fruits and vegetables compared with salty and sweet foods

Comparing and intervening on behavioral demand for snack foods among justice-involved adolescents: A preliminary translational analysis

Obesity may be more prevalent among populations who are of low socioeconomic status, have limited access to nutrient-dense foods, or both. One such population is justice-involved youth. This series of translational experiments builds on previous research on food reinforcement and behavioral demand by (a) assaying demand for snack foods among justice-involved adolescents and (b) evaluating the effect of a nutrition intervention on justice-involved adolescents' demand for healthier alternatives. In Experiment 1, participants completed preference assessments for high- and low-energy-density snack foods and corresponding commodity purchasing tasks. The results indicated significant differences in demand based on energy density and preference. In Experiment 2, justice-involved adolescents received a nutrition intervention. Following intervention, participants repeated preference assessments and commodity purchasing tasks. The researchers used mixed-effects modeling to evaluate the effect of (a) the intervention, (b) participant age, and (c) the amount of intervention received on pre-post differences in demand for healthier alternatives. Results and implications are discussed along with future directions for improving conditions of confinement for justice-involved adolescents.

On the Identification and Use of Social versus Nonsocial Reinforcers: A Review of Research Practices

Recent research has developed efficacious methods for identifying individualized social reinforcers and utilizing social reinforcers may be beneficial for several reasons. However, the relative likelihood of utilizing social versus nonsocial reinforcers in behavior-analytic research remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate how likely behavior analysts are to employ social versus nonsocial reinforcers in the context of research. We pursued this aim by evaluating the types of reinforcers utilized in research published during the past 9 years in five applied behavior-analytic journals. Results suggest that researchers in applied behavior analysis have been more likely to use individualized nonsocial reinforcers than individualized social reinforcers. Moreover, when social reinforcers were employed, they were much more likely to be generic and not individualized. These data suggest there is room for improvement in the types of programmed reinforcement contingencies we use in research and ways of facilitating such improvement are discussed. Implications and directions for future research evaluating current practices, demonstrating the utility of social reinforcers, and comparing the utility of social versus nonsocial reinforcers are also discussed.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40614-024-00426-0.

Optimizing Learning Outcomes when Teaching Sight Words using Fruits and Vegetables as Reinforcers

Reinforcers frequently chosen may not offer the same nutritional value as fruits and vegetables. Prior researchers have explored preferences and the effectiveness of salty and sweet foods compared to fruits and vegetables, but the criteria for demonstrating effectiveness have often been arbitrary rather than academic. In addition, it remains unclear how the integration of these potentially nutritious reinforcers might affect learning or hinder learning efficiency. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate whether introducing fruits or vegetables as potential reinforcers could sustain responding achieved with salty or sweet reinforcers. The implications of this model for incorporating a variety of reinforcers while maintaining responding are also discussed.

A Survey of Why and How Clinicians Change Reinforcers during Teaching Sessions

Preference assessments are used to make data-based decisions about which stimuli to use as reinforcers but they can be challenging to conduct frequently enough to avoid problems related to momentary shifts in preference and reinforcer efficacy. It remains unclear whether, why, and how clinicians change reinforcers on a momentary basis. Therefore, this study aimed to determine common reasons for, and methods of, changing reinforcers in practice. Most respondents indicated that they often change reinforcers during a session, do so when the client mands for or attends to different stimuli or refuses the current stimulus, and identify the new reinforcer based on recent client behaviors (e.g., mands) or by providing an informal choice between stimuli. Responses did not vary meaningfully based on respondent credentials, client characteristics, or service goals. Implications for clinical practice as well as future research on methods of momentary preference assessment and reinforcer identification are discussed.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-023-00847-4.

Evaluating functions of praise for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder

We assessed whether novel praise statements could be used to (a) maintain and increase responses with existing reinforcement histories and (b) teach a previously untaught response among children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder across two experiments. During response-stimulus pairing, two responses resulted in preferred edibles but only one also produced a praise statement. In the absence of edibles, the response continuing to produce praise tended to persist more. Next, reversing the praise contingency tended to increase the other response. However, in no case did contingent delivery of those same praise statements result in the acquisition of untaught responses. These findings suggest that conditioning praise statements could serve different functions (antecedent or consequence) depending on the reinforcement history for particular responses.

Comparing the results of one-session, two-session, and three-session MSWO preference assessments

The multiple-stimulus-without-replacement (MSWO) preference assessment is commonly used in behavior-analytic research and practice. As originally published, the MSWO included 5 sessions in an effort to confirm stimulus preferences. Subsequent researchers have evaluated the validity of MSWO outcomes when the assessment is abbreviated. Generally, valid outcomes have been noted for 3-session MSWOs (that is, the outcomes match those of the 5-session version), while validity outcomes for 1- or 2-session MSWOs have varied across studies. The current study utilized data from 157 MSWO preference assessments conducted in previously published research with 49 total participants and analyzed the extent to which 1-session or 2-session variations of those assessments would have yielded similar outcomes as a 3-session assessment. Results indicate that the hierarchies produced by both abbreviated formats were strongly correlated with those produced by a 3-session assessment. However, neither 1- nor 2-session MSWOs reliably identified the same highest-preferred stimuli as a 3-session MSWO.