A review of correspondence training: Suggestions for a revival

Fifteen Years and Counting: The Dissemination Impact of Behavior Analysis in Practice

When Behavior Analysis in Practice (BAP) was founded 15 years ago, questions were raised about whether a practitioner-focused journal was really needed to complement our field's well-established applied research periodicals. Like research journals, BAP publishes primary research reports for which scholarly citations are one measure of impact. Unlike most research journals, it also was intended to achieve dissemination impact, which implies influence on people who may not conduct research or leave behind citations. Using altmetric data as an objective measure of dissemination impact, we present evidence that BAP is becoming a leader in this domain among applied behavior analysis journals, and thus appears to be accomplishing exactly what it was designed to. We recommend explicitly relying on dissemination impact data to help shape the journal's future development.

Increasing young children's honest reports and decreasing their transgressions

Young children break rules (i.e., transgress) and then lie about those transgressions. By adolescence, lying is associated with decreased trust, communication, and quality of relationships, and with befriending antisocial peers. To decrease lies, we replicated differentially reinforcing honest reports about transgressions for one 6-year-old neurotypical child and two 7-year-old children who were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. After all children learned to report honestly about transgressions, we extended past research to decrease transgressions by differentially reinforcing alternative play behaviors. For all children, this resulted in increased levels of play, decreased transgressions, and continued honesty about infrequent transgressions. Caregivers were satisfied with children's increased honest reports and decreased transgressions. The results support first reinforcing children's honest reports about transgressions and then decreasing transgressions to satisfying levels for caregivers.

Audience Control over Children's Honest Reports

We evaluated audience control over children's honest reports using a reversal (ABA or ABAB) design. Four typically developing children performed a computer game in which they had to shoot a target and then report on their performance during and at the end of each session. Baseline assessed the accuracy of their reports in the absence of an experimenter. During the audience condition, an adult was present in the room and observed the child during the task. Participants accurately reported their errors when an adult was present, whereas they lied about their performance by systematically reporting errors as correct responses when an adult was absent. Honest reports about their total score at the end of the session also increased in the presence of the audience member. These results suggest that the presence of an adult exerted control over children's honest/accurate reports. We discussed the reasons why the presence of an adult may have served as a discriminative stimulus for honest reports.

Using Video Modeling for Generalizing Toy Play in Children With Autism

The present study examined effects of video modeling on generalized independent toy play of two boys with autism. Appropriate and repetitive verbal and motor play were measured, and intermeasure relationships were examined. Two single-participant experiments with multiple baselines and withdrawals across toy play were used. One boy was presented with three physically unrelated toys, whereas the other was presented with three related toys. Video modeling produced increases in appropriate play and decreases in repetitive play, but generalized play was observed only with the related toys. Generalization may have resulted from variables including the toys' common physical characteristics and natural reinforcing properties and the increased correspondence between verbal and motor play.

Contingency analysis of caregiver behavior: Implications for parent training and future directions

Parent training is often a required component of effective treatment for a variety of common childhood problems. Although behavior analysts have developed several effective parent-training technologies, we know little about the contingencies that affect parent behavior. Child behavior is one source of control for parent behavior that likely contributes to the development of childhood problems and outcomes of parent training. We reviewed the evidence supporting child behavior as controlling antecedents and consequences for parent behavior. The implications for parent training are discussed, and recommendations for future research are suggested.

An Extension of the Effects of Praising Positive Qualifying Autoclitics on the Frequency of Reading

In the current study, we reinforced tacts with positive qualifying autoclitics for reading and evaluated the subsequent effect on the allocation of reading behavior. Participants were four typically developing children between 9 and 12 years of age whose primary language was Arabic. We exposed each participant to pre- and posttreatment sessions to assess behavior allocation across activities and materials using a multiple-baseline design. During treatment, the experimenters praised positive statements about reading by each participant. Following treatment, four out of four of participants increased their allocation towards reading.

Teaching Tacting of Private Events Based on Public Accompaniments: Effects of Contingencies, Audience Control, and Stimulus Complexity

Our current understanding of the role of private events in the science of behavior is based largely on Skinner's natural science interpretation of private events. Skinner described public accompaniments as one source of control for a verbal community to differentially reinforce verbal behavior regarding private events. In this study, we developed an experimental analogue to study variables influencing tacting of private events. The participant had exclusive access to one set of stimuli (the private stimuli), and the experimenter attempted to teach tacts for private stimuli based on their correspondence with public stimuli accessible to both the experimenter and participant. Results of experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that reports of private stimuli were a function of degree of public-private correspondence, reinforcement contingency, and audience control. In some cases, we encountered reports controlled exclusively by public stimuli. Results of experiment 3 showed that public control was less likely when public stimuli were more complex and the experimenter had a unique behavioral history with respect to those stimuli that was not shared by the learner. The orderly patterns of data obtained suggest that analogue arrangements might be a useful, and even necessary, starting point for experimental investigations of how private events may enter into the analysis of behavior.

Contingency Horizon: on Private Events and the Analysis of Behavior

Skinner's radical behaviorism incorporates private events as biologically based phenomena that may play a functional role with respect to other (overt) behavioral phenomena. Skinner proposed four types of contingencies, here collectively termed the contingency horizon, which enable certain functional relations between private events and verbal behavior. The adequacy and necessity of this position has met renewed challenges from Rachlin's teleological behaviorism and Baum's molar behaviorism, both of which argue that all "mental" phenomena and terminology may be explained by overt behavior and environment-behavior contingencies extended in time. A number of lines of evidence are presented in making a case for the functional characteristics of private events, including published research from behavior analysis and general experimental psychology, as well as verbal behavior from a participant in the debate. An integrated perspective is offered that involves a multiscaled analysis of interacting public behaviors and private events.

Efeitos de instruções sobre respostas de checagem

O estudo teve o objetivo de testar o controle verbal de diferentes instruções sobre respostas de checagem. Dois participantes adultos foram instruídos a separar quatro tipos de sementes misturadas. Utilizou-se um delineamento sujeito único ABCA na apresentação das instruções. Os resultados mostraram que a instrução C com descrição de conseqüências aversivas aumentou a freqüência das respostas de checagem, sendo que o participante um o fez em relação à instrução B com autoclítico e o participante dois em relação à instrução A de linha de base. Na fase de reversão ambos os participantes diminuíram a freqüência após a apresentação de uma instrução A sem descrição de conseqüências aversivas. Sugere-se que a instrução C especificando toda a contingência pode ter estabelecido função aversiva para as respostas de separação não-efetivas.

Verbal mediating responses: effects on generalization of say-do correspondence and noncorrespondence

We analyzed the effects of verbal mediating responses on the acquisition and generalization of say-do correspondence and noncorrespondence. Participants were assigned to groups in which either reinforcers (feedback and tokens) were arranged for say-do correspondence and noncorrespondence, or no reinforcers were programmed. Participants in these groups were further subdivided into groups in which they were required to repeat what was said previously, were required to repeat random numbers, or no verbalizations were required. When correspondence was reinforced, repetition of what was said produced greater acquisition and generalization of correspondence. When noncorrespondence was reinforced, repetition of numbers facilitated acquisition and generalization of noncorrespondence. Verbal mediating responses interacted with contingencies of reinforcement in determining acquisition and generalization of correspondence and noncorrespondence.

Why pigeons say what they do: reinforcer magnitude and response requirement effects on say responding in say-do correspondence

The effects of reinforcer magnitude and response requirement on pigeons' say choices in an experimental homologue of human say-do correspondence were assessed in two experiments. The procedure was similar to a conditional discrimination procedure except the pigeons chose both a sample stimulus (the say component) and a comparison stimulus that corresponded to it (the do component). Correspondence was trained on red, green, and white key colors before the duration of food presentations following correspondence on each key color (Experiment 1) and the number of key pecks required as the say response on each key color (Experiment 2) were manipulated in an attempt to influence the initial say response. The frequency of say responses on each key color coincided with programmed changes in the duration of food presentations and the key-peck requirements assigned to each key color. Correspondence accuracy remained stable in all conditions, even those in which the say responding occurred primarily on two of the three key colors. Implications for human behavior are discussed.

The effects of praising qualifying autoclitics on the frequency of reading

In the current study, tacts with positive qualifying autoclitics for reading were reinforced in order to determine if this procedure would increase the time spent reading by participants. Participants included 5 children, between 9-10 years old. Participants were individually exposed to 4 free operant sessions during which they were instructed to independently choose play activities. During pre- and post-treatment conditions, no consequences were provided for choosing reading. In addition, 4 treatment sessions were conducted on days separate from the free operant session days, during which the experimenter praised each positive reading-related statement emitted by the participant. Following treatment sessions, 4 out of 5 participants increased the time allocated to reading, suggesting that reading could be increased when praise is delivered contingent upon positive reading-related verbalizations.