Baq behavior analysis quarterly vol 1 no 3

VOL 1 | NO 3

Why Behavior Analysts Should Feel

STUPID P. 13

Stimulus Control and Repeat Offenders P. 15

Behavior Analysis Gone Wild! (sort of...)

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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

This is the last issue of 2015 for BAQ. This issue also marks the end of my second full year at the helm of the magazine (formerly Behavior Analysis Digest International). When I took over BADI from Joe Wyatt, I had a vision to take the publication to as wide an audience as I could. This mission is very much in line with Joe’s. Reflecting on this last year made me realize how much we depend on the work of others to make anything we do a success.

First, the BAQ editors have been tremendously supportive. Their responsiveness to deadlines, edits, and last-minute “we need 300 more words!” have been greatly appreciated. Our columns have seen wider-reaching topics, greater variety on features, and contributions from across the U.S. and the world in the Digest.

But of course, we must stay actively growing. To grow, we must understand our limits and make use of those who have talents we do not. When I ran BADI, I did the layout, production, and packaging myself. Turns out--I stink at that! So I hired a graphic designer to give me a template from which to create BAQ. Turns out--I stink at marketing, too. I, for one, am terrible at social media. I cannot market anything on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social site. But others can. I cannot keep websites updated and maintained. I don’t know why... I should, but I just keep forgetting.

So to help BAQ grow, BAQ must get the help of professionals with a proven track record of success in these areas. And that’s exactly what we’ve done.

Mission Behavior Analysis Quarterly has as its mission the dissemination and celebration of all things behavior analysis.

BAQ Staff EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Benjamin N. Witts St. Cloud State University COLUMNISTS

Todd A. Ward University of North Texas Daniel Reimer University of Nevada, Reno Chelsea Wilhite University of Nevada, Reno THE DIGEST EDITOR

Julie Ackerlund Brandt St. Cloud State University

Starting next issue, BAQ will come under the umbrella of bSci21media, the company that brings you bSci21.com.

Stay tuned--good things are coming out way!

Contact the editor at: benjamin.witts@gmail.com Author Submissions Information: www.baquarterly.com

Benjamin N. Witts, Ph.D., BCBA Assistant Professor - Behavior Analysis Dept of Community Psychology, Counseling, and Family Therapy St. Cloud State University benjamin.witts@gmail.com

© 2015 Stimulus Press, LLC

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COLUMNS

FEATURES

DIGEST

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A Behavioral Approach to Sex Offender Therapy

A Walk on the Wild Side: A Behaviorist’s Career working with Animals DANIEL REIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

On Feeling Stupid BENJAMIN N. WITTS

Is Problem Behavior all that Bad?

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Preference for and Reinforcing Efficacy of Different Types of Attention

SARA CAGLE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS AND WORLD EVENTS Behavior-Based Traffic Safety TODD WARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

LIVE IT! Tantrumming Tots

CHELSEA WILHITE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

KEVIN FUNKHAUSER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

MARY HALBUR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

The Potential Role of Stimulus Control in Recidivism

Lattal and Wacker Host Special Issue on Recurrence of Operant Behavior

STAFF. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

ERINN LARKIN

FROM THE LAB Your Token Economy Needs Some Work

BENJAMIN N. WITTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

OUR VERBAL BEHAVIOR Discriminating Discriminative Stimuli BENJAMIN N. WITTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

RECOGNITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

INGRAM+PUBLISHING / THINKSTOCK

Behavioral Crossing: The field of behavior analysis is varied and diverse. The science can be useful to practically any profession, allowing us to work or contribute in many different settings. However, many of us are not aware of the unique and uncommon professional opportunities available to behavior analysts. This column strives to highlight the diverse areas in which behavior analyst’s work and to inspire all behavior analysts to pursue opportunities in areas not traditionally part of our repertoires.

BEHAVIORIST CROSSING

Daniel Reimer / University of Nevada, Reno

A Walk on the Wild Side: An Interview with Christina Alligood, PhD, BCBA-D Earlier this year I spoke with Christina Alligood regarding her job, interdisciplinary work, and building a path to animal care as a behavior analyst.

Alligood

What is your current occupation and job title?

I work at Disney’s Animal Kingdom as a Behavioral Scientist.

I am a member of the Science Operations team, where I work with an interdisciplinary group of scientists and animal care professionals. Among other things, I work directly with our Behavioral Husbandry Managers to integrate the science of operant learning into our animal training and environmental enrichment programs. I am also an assistant professor at FIT; I teach behavior analysis master’s students in Orlando, but in my answers below I will focus on my work at Disney.

What does a typical day look like for you?

A typical day for me might include some meetings (sometimes in offices and sometimes at animal care areas), some writing and other project work (including instructional design, manuscript and grant reviews, data analyses, etc.), and sometimes some staff training (including animal care staff and interns).

What aspects of your job do you find most interesting?

This is a tough question because one of the reasons I love my job is that there are so many interesting parts! One interesting aspect is translating the operant learning principles gleaned from other settings into applications for the zoo setting. I get to do this in multiple ways, including, for example, problem solving, planning, data collection, and decision making with animal care teams as well as developing content 1

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for staff training. One of the most gratifying aspects so far is that I am able to work in an area that is relatively untapped by behavior analysis while staying active in the behavior analysis community.

Are there any additional skills you had to learn or develop after graduate school? What were they?

Yes, there have been many! For example, when I first came to Disney I worked on a captive-breeding

BEHAVIORIST CROSSING

and reintroduction program for an endangered species. I did a lot of field work and learned about population monitoring, radio tracking, and many other things that were entirely new to me. I’ve

solving.

What is the biggest benefit to working in an occupation that is “non-traditional” for a behavior analyst?

Are there difficulties working with non-behavior analysts?

If so, what are they and what have you done to adapt?

I feel very fortunate to work with scientists and professionals with a variety of different backgrounds and specializations. We each bring a particular set of skills and expertise to the table, and apply them collaboratively to common goals. A newer or nontraditional area of application is probably not the best fit for those who have difficulty working with colleagues who are not behavior analysts.

Do you think it is important for behavior analysts to work in non-traditional areas? If so, why? also really developed and refined my collaboration skills in the years since graduate school. Those skills are tremendously important for achieving success in an unfamiliar environment with colleagues from different backgrounds.

I think it’s very exciting to be involved in a “newer” area of application because it affords lots

Was there anything that surprised you when you first started your career?

One thing that has been interesting to me is the many parallels between zoo work and other settings where behavior analysis is practiced, such as schools. Like teachers, animal keepers are very passionate about their jobs and work very hard to produce great outcomes for those in their care. This makes them great partners in behavioral problem

Yes. As others have noted, diversification is critical to our survival as a discipline. I also think it’s important for behavior analysts working

“Show it, then tell it.”

of opportunities to support other behavior analysts who are interested in that area. I enjoy interacting with students and interns and trying to assist them as they explore careers in this area.

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in different areas of interest to talk with and support each other.

Do you have any suggestions or tips for people who are interested in starting a career like yours?

BEHAVIORIST CROSSING Yes. My advice varies considerably depending on individual goals and contexts, but here are few general suggestions: 1. When trying to establish yourself in a new area, your first jobs are to learn all you can and to pair yourself with reinforcers. Hold off on sharing your suggestions until you’ve made some progress in those two areas.

2. Make yourself useful.

You will build credibility if you are known as someone who pitches in and works hard on things that people in the organization already value (as opposed to telling them what their priorities should be). While you’re doing this, look for opportunities to demonstrate some of your behavior-analytic skills.

3. Show it, then tell it. As you come across opportunities to use your skills, resist the urge to label and explain behavior-analytic practices a priori. Instead, wait until your colleagues have seen good results from a strategy; then you can give them a name for it.

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4. If you want to work in zoos, get some animal-care experience. The job listings at aza.org often have internship and entry-level openings posted. n

Skinner’s vision for Radical Behaviorism had cultural analysis at its core. Today, behavior analysts working on cultural issues are few and far between. Behavior Analysis and World Events returns behavior analysts to their roots by addressing current events of the 21st century from a behavior analytic perspective.

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS AND WORLD EVENTS Todd Ward / University of North Texas

Behavior-Based Traffic Safety

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), traffic fatalities are the leading cause of death in the U.S. for those aged 3-34 (Teigen, Shinkle, & Essex, February, 2005). Speeding accounts for approx. 10,000 annual fatalities, while running red lights accounts for 750 deaths and 260,000 injuries (NCSL, February 27, 2015; Teigen, Shinkle, & Essex, February, 2005).

duction of speed-detecting cameras in select locations. After only six months, the county witnessed a significant reduction in speeding and, after seven years, individuals speeding by more than 10 mph decreased by 59% in comparison to control roads with no cameras. During the same seven year period, the probability that a crash would produce a fatality or incapacitating injury fell by 19%.

In an effort to make our roads safer, an increasing number of law enforcement agencies have embraced the technology known as automated enforcement. From a law enforcement perspective, the attractiveness of the program is based on efficiency of resources—automation implies an agency can do more with less (NCSL, February 27, 2015). In the U.S., more than 400 communities use some form of automated enforcement to enforce red light laws, while over 40 use the system to enforce speeding laws (NCSL, February 27, 2015).

In 2012, the IIHS took their program a step further with the introduction of speed corridors, or long stretches of road targeted with cameras rather than isolated sections. The IIHS noted “the cameras are regularly moved to different locations on those roads so drivers don’t become familiar with their exact locations.” With the introduction of corridors, the probability of fatality or serious injury dropped 30%, in addition to the 19% reported previously. What’s more are IIHS reports of a “spillover effect” wherein significant speeding reductions are observed on non-targeted roadways.

The largest study to-date comes from a multi-year project in Washington D.C., funded by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS News, September 1, 2015). The IIHS President was quoted by IIHS News as saying “We’re all accustomed to seeing posted limits ignored, but it’s a mistake to think nothing can be done about it. Automated enforcement is one of the tools we have at our disposal.” If every county in the U.S. adopted automated enforcement, the IIHS estimated “more than 21,000 fatal or incapacitating injuries would have been prevented in 2013.”

The study began in Montgomery County in 2007, with the intro-

State law varies widely on how municipalities can use traffic cameras, the key component of automated enforcement. For example, the District of Columbia authorized the use of cameras for the enforcement of “all moving infractions” (Teigen, Shinkle, & Essex, February, 2005, p. 52), while Texas permits cameras for the enforcement of red light laws only, and West Virginia prohibits any use of photo enforcement (Teigen, Shinkle, & Essex, February, 2005).

However, Ohio presents an interesting case that taps into the incentives to use or discard automated enforce4

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ment. According to The Vindicator, the state recently passed a law that permits camera-based enforcement as long as an officer is physically present, similar to a more traditional speed gun (Kovac, September 9, 2015).

Law enforcement agencies oppose the law for its requirement that an officer be present, which they say removes any incentive to use the cameras in the first place. As mentioned before, the primary incentive from an agency perspective is that automated systems allow for the more efficient use of organizational resources. As a result, many Ohio communities have ceased camera-based enforcement all together (Kovac, September 9, 2015).

Automated enforcement programs also have ancillary benefits for the communities in which they reside.

For one, the potential for a significant revenue boost to the city is very likely.

For example, Edmonton Canada anticipates an increase in photo-radar enforcement revenue from $30 million in 2014 to $47.8 million in 2015, all from traffic violations ( Jones, September 7, 2015). The Washington Post reports that Chicago tops the list of U.S. cities in terms of revenue gained from enforcement cameras at over $90 million per year, followed by New York with $41 million per year (Crunched, May 1, 2015).

Additionally, the slower one drives, the less fuel is used, which means less pollution and more money in citizens’ pockets. For instance, Halsey (September, 1, 2015) noted that a Toyota Camry gets 40 miles per gallon when traveling at 55 miles per hour. Increasing the speed to 60 mph decreases gas mileage to 35 mpg, while increasing to 75 mph drops the

BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS AND WORLD EVENTS mileage even further, to 30 mpg.

But the program isn’t without critics.

Twelve state legislatures have explicitly prohibited the use of enforcement cameras, and a recent Washington Post poll suggested 40% of respondents opposed the idea—more so for people who lived in regions with cameras already in place (Halsey, September 1, 2015). At the city level, Cleveland recently voted to discontinue the use of cameras, which prompted Xerox to file a lawsuit against the city for breach of contract.

Xerox signed a three-year deal to supply the city with cameras, which was terminated early due to voter responses (FoxNews, September 10, 2015). Ohio citizens complained that camera-based enforcement “were little more than a money grab” given that approx. 35% of revenue from fines went to a company that helps run the program. The same citizens alleged that the camera systems are not without error, resulting in citations going to the wrong people, and a lack of appeals processes suitable for the program (Kovac, September 9, 2015).

The story of automated enforcement presents an interesting challenge to behavior analysts. Data suggests the systems are effective at increasing the safety of our roadways, and the behavioral processes involved seem fairly straightforward. Under the traditional methods of traffic enforcement, the probability that any given driver would receive a ticket was relatively low. A ticket was contingent upon first contacting a police officer on the roadway, and many times drivers can see the police vehicle in the distance or infer the presence of a

speed trap when other drivers in the vicinity reduce their speed. Granted, most people have likely received a speeding ticket in the past—some more than others—but the tickets are typically few and far between. In fact, the high dollar amounts coming into city budgets as a result of automatic enforcement is a testament to how many people do not obey traffic rules.

I have received a ticket from an automated enforcement program for running a red light. The ticket itself even had a link to a video where I could see myself running the light in question. Even though the ticket didn’t come in the mail for a few weeks after the infraction, my driving behavior has sensitized to cameras mounted at intersections. If I were consulting to a municipality on how to further improve the effectiveness of automated enforcement technologies I would recommend that the systems embrace the modern era of smartphones. Instead of using outdated “snail mail” technology to deliver tickets, the delayed contingency between the traffic violation and the receipt of a citation could be reduced to near a near instantaneous consequence if systems were in place to email or text an “e-citation” moments after the infraction.

But the ends don’t always justify the means. For cities like Cleveland that experience a large backlash against automated enforcement policies, those in power might find comfort in knowing that Applied Behavior Analysis has a sizable literature on interventions to increase driver safety, for a fraction of the cost of camera systems. For example, Van Houten,

Full References at www.BAQuarterly.com/behavior-based 5

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Nau, and Marini (1981) installed highway signs that provided daily or weekly feedback on the percentage of drivers who were driving at appropriate speeds. The researchers found that daily and weekly postings were equally as effective at reducing speeds. However, the effects of the signs vanished when the signs showed no numerical feedback. In a similar study, Van Houten, and Nau (1981) found that feedback effectively reduced speeding on urban highways, and was ten times more effective at reducing speed than were police surveillance and ticketing.

Van Houten’s effects have been replicated by Iclanders Ragnarsson and Bjorgvinsson (1991). The latter group posted signs along roads entering residential areas. As in the previous studies, the signs contained feedback on the percentage of drivers traveling at appropriate speeds. The team also created a condition in which a sign containing an ideal speed followed the feedback sign. Results mirrored those of Van Houten, in that the feedback signs significantly reduced speeding, with the follow-up sign producing much smaller speed reductions.

But the studies on highway feedback only scratch the surface of how behavior analysts have successfully intervened on traffic safety as a whole.

The point is that evidence-based solutions to traffic enforcement exist.

Behavior analysts have been demonstrating their successes for over three decades. When automated enforcement systems evoke resistance from the public, other options are available that, on the surface at least, appear benign. n

Behavior analysis’ leaders advocate using our science in solving the world’s problems. While we celebrate successes in some areas, limited mainstream acceptance is seen as failure to achieve the sweeping goals set by our pioneers.

One definition of “success” could include engaging in behavior-analyticallyinformed behaviors as a consistent practice. I set out to find examples of behavior analysts engaging in behavior analytic practices outside of their occupations.

LIVE IT! Chelsea Wilhite / University of Nevada, Reno

Tantruming Tots My son just turned a year old. As any parent will tell you, watching your child grow and learn about the world is an amazingly fulfilling experience. And along with the joy comes the sometimes terrifying knowledge that as your child learns more skills, his frustrations and behavioral excesses also become more complicated. On particularly difficult days, I see glimpses of the potential tantrums my son might develop in the coming years. My husband and I keep an ongoing dialogue about avoiding situations that trigger these episodes and how to prevent ourselves from reinforcing whining and crying behaviors.

Fortunately, when it comes to minimizing tantrum behaviors, we have some exemplary models to imitate.

Christina Lydon is a BCBA, practitioner, and doctoral student in Reno, Nevada. She and her husband, Wes, have two daughters. Their oldest, Elena, is three years old, and besides being one of the smartest preschoolers I have ever known (she knows when to use “good” and when to use “well” in complex sentences), Elena is extremely well behaved. Over the years, I have talked with both Christina and Wes about how they minimized Elena’s challenging but typical toddler behaviors. Their answers are everything you would expect from the family of a Behavior Analyst.

The Lydons make a point to identify functions of precursor-to-tantrum behaviors and teach

replacement behaviors. During the instances in which Elena engages in tantrum behaviors (e.g., screaming, crying, throwing herself on the floor), Christina and Wes withhold social attention while making sure she is unable to injure herself.

Christina emphasizes they also make use of rules.

cation of these procedures. Now that I have a child of my own, I can understand just how impressive that is. I asked Christina how she maintains treatment integrity while experiencing all those emotions parents feel when their children cry, whine, or are otherwise emotionally distressed. One tool they use

“What we do generally is restate the rule, which is usually something along the lines of, ‘Once you calm down, we can talk about it,’ and then we wait for her to take a break from the crying/screaming,” Christina tells me.

“Usually, while she is still crying, I’ll engage myself in another activity, sometimes in the same room and sometimes in the next room. When she then takes a break, or seems to calm (even just a little bit), I’ll come back to her, thank her for calming down, and then we can talk about her problem.”

during particularly difficult episodes is to put physical distance between themselves and their toddler.

As I said, these are measures you would expect in any behavior analytic-oriented family, but from my personal observations, the Lydons are very consistent in their appli-

“Depending on the severity, we sometimes will carry her into her room and tell her that she can stay in there to calm down and come back out when she feels ready. We

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Miss Elena Lydon

LIVE IT! don’t close the door, and it isn’t meant to be a punishment but just a way for us to limit accidental reinforcement and to give her a place to calm down where she is comfortable. She usually ends up calming, playing for a little while, and then coming back out. At this point, we usually praise her for calming down (trying to reinforce that little bit of self-management she just engaged in).” Still physical distance cannot eliminate a parent’s emotions.

“I generally feel more stress/frustration/exasperation than sadness,” Christina says. “Usually to decompress I’ll have to spend a little time

alone or talking to Wes as a sort of debrief.” Another tool they use involves more objective evaluations of the event. “Usually, some of the things she does are funny in retrospect, so looking at it again more objectively later can help, as can specifically looking for the humor in the situation.”

After a stressful incident, Christina says re-establishing the parent-child bond can be valuable. “It helps to do something fun together afterwards, to specifically pair myself with reinforcement after having to lay down the law, so to speak.”

By implementing behavior analytic techniques when addressing their daughter’s tantruming behavior, including teaching replacement behaviors, making use of rules, putting tantruming on extinction, maintaining treatment integrity, reinforcing appropriate behavior, and managing their own covert behaviors, Christina and Wes Lydon create an environment in which their daughter’s tantruming behaviors are minimized or avoided completely. In their parenting style, the Lydons are living it! (I merely hope I can follow in their footsteps with my own child.). n

Aim High!

Applied Behavior Analysis High-Quality, Comprehensive, and Flexible!

• No. 1 ranked Board Certified Behavior Analyst pass rates of any online ABA master’s program • Ph.D.-level instructors in all courses • Conceptual and practical coursework • International collaboration • Publish, present and pursue your professional goals all with close faculty support For more information email: ccsaba@stcloudstate.edu http://scsu.mn/aba-grad

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Often the basic and applied domains seem as though a large chasm separates the two. But each has something to inform the other. In From the Lab, we take work done in the basic domain and show how it applies to treatment, conceptualization, and everyday life.

FROM THE LAB

Benjamin N. Witts / St. Cloud State University

Your Token Board Needs Some Work

Assessing Conditioned Reinforcement

token board, it’s likely that both criteria—good behavior and learning—are met. But we must remember that even poor reinforcement can result in good behavior and acquisition, particularly with children who have a history of responding to tutor demands. We often attribute a generally-compliant way of being to instructional control, and this might have more to do with a history of punishment for not responding or responding inappropriately than it does with the quality of reinforcement. In other words, children learn to do as they are told, or else.

There are many ways to determine if some stimulus is reinforcing.

However, the practitioner, often faced with a very demanding work environment, must sacrifice months

While we may not have the luxury of articulate, repeated reinforcement assessments in our practice, we can draw from work that does have that luxury. Starting in 1969, Edmund

of well-controlled experimental work for a more pragmatic approach. In a sense, the practitioner just wants to know if something works as reinforcement, and this is often proven by seeing good ontask behavior and progress toward skill acquisition. In our two-colored

Fantino published early work just what makes conditioned reinforcement reinforcing. This work culminated in the delay reduction theory (DRT). DRT states that, all things being equal, the more powerful conditioned reinforcers are those that are more highly correlated

A student recently brought to my attention a twist to the typical token economy that she used in a clinic where she works with young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. The twist, which I reveal in a moment, was so well-received by staff that it became company policy to alter the way token boards were developed at the site. Historically, this clinic had been using tokens of the same color to mark progress toward some putative reinforcement. However, it was argued that by changing the color of the final token, that final token’s effectiveness would be enhanced.

For example, if a child was working for 5 tokens to earn computer time, the first four tokens would be yellow with the fifth token blue. The rationale was that the blue token

While the blue token might be more valuable in terms of reinforcement efficacy, this twist to the token board will actually make the yellow tokens less valuable than if all tokens were yellow! The 50-year-old idea that leads us to this conclusion is based on Edmund Fantino’s work on delay reduction, and I will recount some of his work to help illustrate why it’s better to use all yellow tokens than to switch up the colors.

would be more reinforcing than the yellow, adding an additional reward, making the token board more effective and fun for the client.

There was a major flaw with their idea, however, and it relates to work started nearly half a century ago.

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FROM THE LAB

with a reduction in time to some Perhaps it’s best if we review what only one conditioned reinforcer primary reinforcement. For examis essential about DRT through is presented. The reason? If both ple, most employees prefer 4:50pm Lewis Gollub’s 1958 thesis (as cited tandem and chain schedules start over 1:30pm as 4:50pm is more and recounted in Fantino, 2008). with a white key, the chain schedclosely related to leaving (assumIn his study, Gollub arranged two ule’s white key essentially says, “Hey ing a 5:00 end to the workday). equal chained schedules to obtain buddy, you got a ways to go to get Note that the clock reinforcement!” Alin itself need not be ternatively, the tanreinforcing, but its dem’s white key says, “powerful conditioned reinforcers are those value as a potential “Hey, this might be that are ... correlated with a reduction in reinforcer changes the one that leads with time. Consider, to reinforcement!” time to ... primary reinforcement.” too, a young child’s Get it? behavior as a favorite holiday season apSo what’s wrong proaches. First a change in outdoor food. Both schedules required with the Blue Token? temperature, then festive decorapigeons to complete five FI 1 tions go up, then holiday shows minute schedules to earn access to There’s actually nothing wrong with and movies come on television, and food. One schedule was a tandem the blue token on its own. Howfinally wrapped gifts are found to schedule, which simply means that ever, the blue token is the token congregate around a slowly dying all five FI components were acthat best predicts reinforcement is conifer. Each of these elements companied with the same colored coming. Under this preparation, just described helps to predict that key light (discriminative stimulus). blue tokens are good, and yellow the opportunity to open gifts is In the chain schedule each FI tokens are indicators that the blue approaching, and the culminating component had a different colored token, and thus reinforcement, are a effect, here on an interval schedule, key light. So in the chain schedule ways off. In other words, the yellow might produce some adjunctive the light might switch from white tokens predict a period void of behavior in the child. The point is to red, then blue, then green, and reinforcement. Tokens should be a clear, I hope: we tend to like those so forth. The tandem would reform of conditioned reinforcement, things that tell us it’s almost time main the same, perhaps just white and here it borders on conditioned for reinforcement. throughout. Pigeons by far prefer punishment! n the tandem schedule, even though

Fantino, E. (2008). Choice, conditioned reinforcement, and the Prius effect. The Behavior Analyst, 31, 95-111.

Fantino, E. (1969). Conditioned reinforcement, choice, and the psychological distance to reward. In D. P. Hendry’s (Ed.) Conditioned reinforcement. Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press

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Sometimes learning a scientific language can be just as difficult, if not more so, than learning a foreign language. Our Verbal Behavior explores some of the intricacies of our scientific language with an emphasis on developing correct stimulus control over each term covered.

OUR VERBAL BEHAVIOR

Benjamin N. Witts / St. Cloud State University

Discriminating Discriminative Stimuli I have a fun exercise I conduct with my incoming master’s students (well, fun for me, anyway). I ask them to list several discriminative stimuli (SD; pronounced es-dee) and I write them on the marker board. For example, students might say that a keyboard is the SD for typing, or that a headache is the SD for getting aspirin. Then, we systematically eliminate roughly 80% of the examples as they are not truly SDs. While the exercise helps students to realize that they’re in the right place—as they’ve got a lot to learn—it’s a bit disturbing to realize that so many students, many of whom have been practicing behavior analysts for years, don’t know how to identify a discriminative stimulus.

Misconceptions about SDs When I survey my students, I get a typical “definition” of discriminative stimuli that equates to something like, “A discriminative stimulus is a stimulus that occasions a response.”

Here ‘occasion’ refers to a cause. So the belief is that a discriminative stimulus causes a response. Were this to be true, then discriminative stimuli would better fit in a respondent analysis. Recall that respondents, and their reflexive base, stand in a close relation where often a particular stimulus causes a particular response (though that analysis is, perhaps, simplistic).

Some students will counter that an SD is really just a stimulus that makes a response more likely. This

definition is a bit closer to what an SD really is, but it lacks the necessary features of discriminative stimuli. Here the students tend to confuse prompts and motivating operants with SDs. Prompts often refer to antecedent stimuli that help to promote a weak, incomplete, or low-probability response to production. Prompts are used when an organism needs a bit of help in producing the correct response.

Motivating operations alter reinforcement effectiveness, giving rise to responding that produces such reinforcement.

Of course, my sample is biased here as I only turn to my students.

However, given that definitional errors similar to what I’ve pointed out here appear in popular texts, peer-reviewed journal articles, and other outlets like blogs, discussion boards, and Facebook posting exchanges, I suspect they are rather common. So what, then, is a discriminative stimulus?

Defining the Discriminative Stimulus Jack Michael (2004; pp. 59-65) provided a clear definition of discriminative stimuli, and it’s the one I use here. A discriminative stimulus is a stimulus that, when present, results in an increase in the rate of a particular response (or class).

While this sounds like the prompt described above, some caveats come with the SD. First, the SD gains its status as the 10

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product of a history of differential reinforcement. Here responding is reinforced in its presence, but not in its absence. When responding occurs in its absence, an extinction schedule is in effect. When present, stimuli that signal the differential unavailability of reinforcement are call S∆s (es-delta). For example, while typing this, my Internet connection has gone out. I know this because an icon with an exclamation mark in a small yellow triangle on my status bar lets me know that attempts to access the Internet will not be met with reinforcement. In this case, the icon is an S∆ for accessing the Internet. When the icon is removed and I’m left with a series of bars indicating access to the Internet has returned, my responses with respect to the Internet will be reinforced (thus, these bars are an SD for accessing the Internet).

Second, the SD is only effective under appropriate motivating operations. This second caveat is important, as this requires that the organism would respond in the absence of the stimulus if reinforcement were likely. Thus, the SD signals the differential availability of a particular reinforcer given the response and related motivating operation. In the example above with the Internet connection, I find that I have need to access the Internet to check on important emails. Thus, responding with respect to the Internet is highly probable in both cases. However, if I was focused on writing this article, access to the Internet might be distracting and I

OUR VERBAL BEHAVIOR

Benjamin N. Witts / St. Cloud State University

would find its use of no reinforcing value. In this latter case, I care for neither icon, as I would not find need to use the Internet (and thus neither has discriminative properties at that time).

Inherent in this definition is a third caveat; the SD does not differentially restrict responding (cf. Malott, 2008; pp. 217-218). Keeping with the Internet connection example, the icons do not restrict my attempts to check email (the response in question). Instead, the icons have unique histories of reinforcement with respect to the response in question and its related reinforcement. In other words, I can check my email all I want; it’s only under some conditions that this response is reinforced.

This might seem like a lot to consider, but it’s actually quite simple to determine if a stimulus is a discriminative stimulus. I’ve provided a quick yes/no diagram to help you determine SD status.

Now that you know just what a discriminative stimulus is, don’t be surprised if you find professors, colleagues, and even authors in peer-reviewed journal articles calling all manner of antecedent stimuli “SD” when they meant something else. n

REFERENCES Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. Edgewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc.

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S

R+

RECOGNITION

From: Jonathan Derby Recognizing: Sara Eggers

Your commitment, engagement, and perseverance with these kids is awe-inspiring. I’m grateful and thankful to have you in my life as a colleague, educator, and partner. Thank you!

From: Benjamin Witts Recognizing: “The Lab”

It is certainly not said enough how much joy I derive from the challenge that is working with the best and brightest students. With a more-than-full teaching load, infant twins at home, and other university duties, I perhaps do not take time to address my appreciation for helping to make me a better scientist through our time together. I am so excited to be part of your development, and I am so eager to see how far you go!

Is there someone whose behavior you want to SR+? Then let us know and we’ll feature it in our next issue for the world to see!

Submission Instructions:

• Limit your SR+ to 450 characters or less (including spaces) • Include your full name, the full name or title of the person, program, business, etc., you are SR+ing • Provide specifics what your SR+ is for, descriptive feedback is the most effective • Email Daniel Reimer to submit your SR+ at di.reimer@yahoo.com

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On Feeling Stupid: An Open Letter to My Fellow Students BENJAMIN N. WITTS ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY

Benjamin Witts is an assistant professor in the Applied Behavior Analysis master’s program at SCSU. He specializes in gambling and infant sleep concerns Background Being a behavior analyst is not an easy job. At least, it’s not an easy job when you want to be a really good behavior analyst. There are many times in our lives where we are faced with challenges that produce a great deal of frustration and upset with ourselves.

For many of us, these frustrations are first met when we begin graduate coursework. While we might recall the challenge that was negative reinforcement vs. positive punishment during our undergraduate coursework or on-the-job training, that challenge pales compared to the insurmountable workload that comes with MA and PhD work. We might be required to read during undergraduate courses and regurgitate what was read on a quiz, but now we find ourselves having to understand and apply our coursework. The point is this: transitions are difficult, but they can be wonderful. This editorial comments upon a common experience many students have when they transition from “competent” to “amazing.” During this transition, students might find themselves feeling frustrated, which might in turn lead to feeling stupid.

A Stupid Definition The Oxford English Dictionary (Stupid, n.d.) offers several definitions for stupid. The one that pertains to the current editorial is as follows: Wanting in or slow of mental perception; lacking ordinary activity of mind;

slow-witted, dull. Surely this definition has a derogatory meaning, and for the layperson that is probably true.

But in science, feeling stupid, at least as per this definition, is a wonderful thing. When you experience feelings of stupidity, you should embrace them.

I would urge you to, as I do, feel happy whenever you feel stupid.

There is a very good reason for embracing one’s feelings of stupidity. Consider the conditions under which we would tact such an emotional response, and realize that those conditions involve an organism who is undergoing change. This change consists of either producing some previously absent response or replacing a response in which you previously engaged. It will be wise for me to clarify these two conditions, and offer a personal example of each.

In the former condition we are faced with a problem as Skinner defined it (see Skinner, 1953). In this case, a problem is an occasion upon which some response (R1) would be produced if available, but currently is not.

Such feelings of stupidity under these conditions can come close to emotional responses that tend to occur with frustrating situations, such as with some extinction preparations. Any response that makes R1 possible is considered a solution. The problem, then, is that R1 is not available, which is in some way aversive to the individual. In my earlier research I faced a problem in that I could not execute the correct 13

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formulas for obtaining discounting functions, and thus I felt stupid. Having read and reread numerous articles, I could not get the curves to compute properly. The solution consisted of collaborating with a colleague, and R1 (calculating the discounting curves) was then made more likely. After R1 was produced, I no longer felt stupid.

It was here that I was finally able to calculate the curves, though it required some assistance.

In the latter condition, we find that previously-produced responses—given the opportunity now—would not be produced in favor of some other response, even if that other response is not responding at all. As an example of response replacement, I work as an assistant professor in a master’s program in applied behavior analysis, and as such I am expected to know a great deal of my subject matter (though expectations and performance don’t necessarily match!). I have written on, supervised projects on, and taught courses on verbal behavior. Thus, when having suggested to a student to work on a thesis regarding thematic and formal prompts in error correction procedures, I found myself struggling with questions of how pictorial prompts work in relation to formal and thematic prompting of vocal-verbal behavior. With much arrogance or ignorance—I’m not sure which—I foolishly ignored the suggestions from her practicum supervisor that the picture prompt is thematic, as I had misread

Skinner’s (1953) definition of formal prompts. Somehow I had convinced myself of an alternative definition which led me to state, rather confidently I might add, the pictorial prompt was formal, rather than thematic. Realizing something was not right about my analysis, I sent a

Embarrassing? Absolutely!

So I ended up feeling stupid on two fronts from this episode: 1) in having professed an incorrect definition of formal prompts to my student, and 2) for having believed that I should have the answer because I am the professor.

Two mistakes I will never make again.

Of course, I have many more examples I could use here, but I’m afraid they are too numerous and would belabor the point. But they remind me of something I hear often from students and early-career professionals: “I should know that.” But we shouldn’t know anything. We know what we know, and when we don’t know, we should feel stupid (but recall that we should enjoy feeling stupid).

Embracing Stupidity

post to a listserv (an email discussion group) where many prominent behavior analysts, many my behavioral heroes, proceeded to “educate” me on my ignorance. Educational? Yes.

The young scientist asks, “Why on earth should we want to feel stupid?” and the learned colleague replies, “What a stupid question.” Stupid, in the sense that I am describing it here, relates to an opportunity to transition, to grow, to learn. But feel-

ing stupid is more than just learning; it is a special circumstance related to learning in which one fails to find the change aversive, or at least not so aversive that the change is resisted.

The difference between holding to old ways of thinking despite contrary evidence and allowing the change to occur is the difference between being stupid (cf. Goldiamond, 1965) and feeling stupid. He or she who feels stupid evolves.

Feeling stupid, then, is to be pursued.

Feeling stupid means you are solving problems and becoming a better scientist and practitioner. Feeling stupid means that you are growing and becoming more than you were yesterday. Feeling stupid, and loving it, safeguards from curmudgeonly ways of thinking and allows us to stand in defiance of our scientific forefathers and say, “You are wrong. And someday, I will be wrong.” Feeling stupid is at the very heart of what it means to be a scientist.

In my title I write that this is a letter to my fellow students. I am, however, no longer a student in the typical sense. But because I can find myself feeling stupid, I consider myself to still be a student. I plan on being a student until I die, and I would encourage my fellow students to join me in retaining that status. We have among us many students in the field, and many of them earned their PhDs before I was even born. Being stupid is perhaps the greatest feeling I have experienced, and I anticipate I will continue feeling stupid for quite some time. n

References Goldiamond, I. (1965). Self-control procedures in personal behavior problems. Psychological Reports, 17, 851-868.

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. Oxford, England: Macmillan.

Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Stupid [Def. 3]. (n.d.). In OED Online, Retrieved September 28, 2015, from http://www.oed. com/view/Entry/192218?redirectedFrom=stupid&.

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The Potential Role of Stimulus Control on Recidivism ERINN LARKIN ST. CLOUD STATE UNIVERSITY

Erinn Larkin is originally from Bismarck, ND. She is currently working on her Master’s degree in Applied Behavior Analysis at St. Cloud State University.

Imprisonment was not always the primary means of dealing with criminal activity in the United States. For instance, as Barnes (1921) pointed out, punishment during Colonial times was met with outcomes like floggings and death, with prisons being relegated to those who owed some debt (i.e., debtors’ prisons). In the late 18th century, the United States began moving toward prisons being reserved for dangerous or severe criminal behavior. The role that prisons played in working with the incarcerated changed over time, at some points being concerned with punishment, rehabilitation, or education (cf. Skinner, 1953).

used in the Elmira Reformatory in 1869, the act of regularly scheduled meetings between the ex-convict and some appointed guardian began to spread across the prison system (Abadinsky, 1994).

Parole Systems Currently, 35 states make use of one of two parole systems (see Abadinsky, 1994; Batten, 2013). In the first system, the independent model, a non-state agency serves as the parole board, whereas in the consolidation model the commissioner of corrections supervises the board (Abadinsky, 1994). Regardless of model, the

A painting of the Elmira Reformatory, which opened in 1876 with the purpose of rehabilitating criminals.

The question remained, however, as to how to verify the effectiveness of the prison system on an offender who receives early release. Thus, the modern day parole system was born. First

role of the board is to appoint two to three members to review an inmate’s case and determine if he or she has been rehabilitated to the point of becoming a successful member of

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society. As Abadinsky (1994) pointed out, the parole board accomplishes its goal by taking into account prior arrest history, the crime that led to the current incarceration, behavior in prison, time currently served, and may even interview the inmate, victim, and the victim’s family prior to reaching a decision. Additionally, inmates can increase their chances of being granted parole by engaging in prosocial behaviors while in prison such as earning a GED, signing up for prerelease living skill classes, and getting a driver’s license, among other activities. If the parole board reaches a consensus that the inmate has been rehabilitated, the inmate is free as of the determined release date and subject to the board’s terms of parole.

The terms of parole vary by offender, but there are two general classes of parole conditions (Scott-Hayward, 2011).

Standard conditions involve the parolee meeting regularly with a parole officer, obtaining and maintaining employment, and following restrictions on travel, typically limiting travel to within the confines of the community in which the original crime was committed. Special conditions encompass standard conditions with the addition of random drug screenings and

potentially mandatory rehabilitation

sures proper drug testing, adherence to meeting schedules, and that the parolee remains in the appropriate area, with many of these activities being conducted randomly.

Recidivism

services.

Upon release, though sometimes when first incarcerated, the offender is assigned to a parole officer. To become a parole officer, one must hold some relevant degree, often a bachelor’s degree, in a field such as sociology, criminal justice, corrections, or counseling (Abadinsky, 1994). The parole officer is responsible for assisting the parolee in locating employment, housing, and social supports (e.g., alcoholics anonymous), and works to involve the parolee’s family with meeting the expectations required of the parolee after release. In addition to providing various supports, the parole officer en-

Of those prisoners who receive early release, and thus are paroled, approximately 67.8% are arrested and reincarcerated within three years, and 76.6% within five years (Durose, Cooper, & Snyder, 2005). Considering that paroling an individual costs approximately $5 per day per parolee (Zhang, Roberts, & Callanan, 2006), and that, for example, in 2005 over 400,000 individuals were paroled (Durose et al., 2005), it becomes apx1klima / FLICKR parent that the need for an effective parole system to justify the costs is needed. The problem of recidivism, then, remains a prominent one, both to the parolee and the community that financially supports it.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

More than 400,000 people were dis-

placed and had to relocate to different parts of the city, the state, and the country (Geaghan, 2011). Among those displaced were parolees that had been released from Louisiana correctional facilities. The recidivism rates of those parolees who were displaced were lower than parolees who returned home during that period (Kirk, 2009).

This leads one to question why this happened. The answer may be found in the behavioral principle of stimulus control.

Stimulus control is defined as “a situation in which the frequency, latency, duration, or amplitude of a behavior is altered by the presence or absence of an antecedent stimulus” (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007, p. 705).

For example, all things being equal, green lights tend to evoke responses related to accelerating while red lights evoke responses related to decelerating (aka braking). To be sure, lights have no inherent control over driving; it’s only after a history of differential reinforcement with respect to accelerating and braking in the presence of those lights that they come to have stimulus control. Thankfully for most drivers, this differential reinforcement can be experienced verbally and the stimulus control takes hold prior to one’s first time driving!

When discussing stimulus control and recidivism, the environment the

“The point is ... to get us behavior analysts thinking about how our principles extend to a broad diversity of concerns”

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offender committed a crime in is sure to hold some influence over his or her responding. As a hypothetical example, repeated successfully completed criminal acts in that neighborhood reinforced the offender’s criminal behavior, thus giving the neighborhood stimulus control. When a parolee returns to their neighborhood upon release, that stimulus control is still there, increasing the probability that the parolee will reoffend. In the case of the parolees relocated after Hurricane Katrina, they moved to an environment that did not have a history or reinforcement with respect to criminal behavior for them and the result was a lower recidivism rate among those parolees. Of course, other sources of stimulus control are present, such as individual persons who might work to make criminal behavior more likely (e.g., former accomplices) and other contextual factors like affiliated gang activity. What remains to be seen, however, is if the idea of stimulus control could be programmed into parole systems to help curb potential recidivism.

A Pilot Stimulus-Control-Based Parole Program A pilot program, designed by behavior analysts, that works in conjunction with an existing parole system could be the answer to recidivism concerns.

I will attempt to describe a potential pilot program in the hopes that a larger conversation is born from it.

Behavior analysts would work with parole boards and officers in two counties within the same state separated by at least 250 miles. A parolee exchange would take place between the two counties where selected parolees from one county would be released into a different county, and vice versa. The idea behind this being that if there is no history of reinforcement for criminal behavior in the new location, the parolee is less likely to reoffend. There are obvious concerns with public safety so parolees would be selected by the parole board based on certain criteria. Parolees would have to be low-risk offenders, have their GED, and have no immediate

family, or their family would have to be willing to relocate. Additional criteria may include successfully completing living-skills classes and addiction counseling where applicable.

Conditions for the parolees would be decided by the parole board, but would include the standard conditions: finding a residence, gaining and maintaining employment, limiting travel to a set area, and abstaining from substance abuse. The parolees would also be responsible for attending weekly meetings with their parole officer. Any occurrence of criminal behavior would result in the parolee’s termination from the program and their reincarceration.

Of course this pilot program is a bit light on the details. The point is not to solve the recidivism problem here, but to get us behavior analysts thinking about how our principles extend to a broad diversity of concerns. I believe that we can make a large impact on recidivism rates with a program similar to the one thus described. n

References Abadinsky, H. (1994). Probation and parole in the United States. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. Barnes, H. E. (1921). Historical origin of the prison system in America. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 12, 35-60.

Batten, D. (2013). Criminal law. In Batten, D. Gale encyclopedia of everyday law Cooper J.O, Heron T.E., & Heward, W. L. (2007). Chapter 17. Applied behavior analysis (2nd edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Durose, M. R., Cooper, A. D., & Synder, H. N. (2005). Recidivism of prisoners released in 30 states in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010 (pdf, 31 pages). Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, April 2014, NCJ 244205.

Geaghan, K. A. (2011). Forced to move: An analysis of Hurricane Katrina movers. Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division, US Census Bureau.

Kirk, D. S. (2009). A natural experiment on residential change and recidivism: Lessons from Parole and Probation System for United States Courts, U.S.C. § 1054 (1920).

Scott-Hayward, C. S., (2011). The failure of parole: Rethinking the role of the state in reentry.

New Mexico Law Review, fall, 1-15.

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. Oxford, England: Macmillan.

Zhang, S. X., Roberts, R. E., & Callanan, V. J. (2006). The cost benefits of providing community-based correctional services: An evaluation of a statewide parole program in California. Journal of Criminal Justice, 34, 341-350.

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Julie Ackerlund Brandt, Editor

A Behavioral Approach to Sex Offender Therapy Kevin Funkhauser Middletown, PA. – The treatment of sex offenders has become a subject of debate as to what is considered fair and just, but more importantly, what approaches are effective in the prevention or rehabilitation of sex offenders.

It has become evident that sex offenders require a more rehabilitative model of dealing with their behavior if there is any hope of saving the individuals from themselves and protecting society. Sex offenders are distinguished from normal functioning humans due to their attraction to deviant stimuli.

Deviant stimuli would be categorized as any sexual imagery or conduct involving a minor, fetishes, or conduct that is not consensual.

Rehabilitating a sex offender requires controlling or mitigating the effects of deviant stimuli.

The purpose of applied behavioral therapy in regards to sexual offenders is to regulate behavior by decreasing problematic behaviors and subsequently increasing more appropriate behaviors. For that to be possible, certain techniques have been used in an effort to mitigate the deviant behavior.

Such techniques have included exposing the individual to alternative behaviors in the presence of deviant stimuli as a means of dis-

traction, such as singing, counting, and solving simple mathematical equations to suppress the sexual arousal response (Reyes, 2011).

Participants in such studies had mixed results that were difficult to maintain.

Sex offender therapy is a relatively new concept, and is not exactly popular among the public due to the belief that the treatment is ineffective. Valiant attempts by therapeutic programs at diminishing sexually deviant behavior have proved to not be a permanent solution to the issue because these programs are only designed to replace the problematic behavior with other behaviors instead of eliminating it. This has not been the case with applied-behavioral methods which have shown consistent results of a reduction in sexually deviant behavior. It is imperative that both mental health and criminal justice professionals become more open-minded to the idea of applied behavioral analysis when dealing with sex offenders and sexual deviates. Together they can formulate a united effort to identify sexual deviancy among certain individuals and acquire the necessary skills to treat the problematic behavior before it gets worse. n References Reyes, J.R., Vollmer, T.R., & Hall, A. (2011).

The influence of presession factors in the assessment of deviant arousal. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 44, 707-717.

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Is Problem Behavior All That Bad? Sara Cagle University of North Texas Many children demonstrate problem behaviors such as tantrums, aggression, and disruption. Many of behaviors are considered normal; however, if they persist or occur at an increased frequency or intensity, they may interfere with the development of appropriate social and communicative behavior (BriggsGowan, Carter, Bosson-Heenan, Guyer, & Horwitz, 2006; Campbell, Shaw, & Gilliom, 2000). Therefore, early assessment and treatment of problem behavior is essential, but only a small amount of studies have completed functional analyses using typically developing children as participants.

Greer, Neidert, Dozier, Payne, Zonneveld, and Harper (2013) conducted a functional analysis of problem behaviors with typically developing children within their preschool classrooms. They validated their FA results by implementing treatment-based interventions for each participant. The participants were four, typically developing children who engaged in higher levels of problem behavior (i.e., aggression and property destruction) relative to their peers. An important addition to this study was that sessions took place in the child’s classrooms during regularly scheduled activities and not in a separate, more-con-

trolled environment. Each sessions lasted 10 minutes and data were collected on the frequency of aggression, property destruction, and independent mands.

The functional analysis consisted of four test conditions (ignore, attention, demand, and tangible) and one control condition (play) all arranged in a multi element design (Greer et al., 2013). The authors used different colored shirts, different therapists, presession statements describing session conditions, and fixed order presentation of conditions to increase saliency of the conditions. Results of the functional analysis were that problem behavior was maintained by social positive reinforcement for all subjects. More specifically, social positive reinforcement in the form of attention for three participants and attention and tangibles for one participant.

Treatments consisted of differential reinforcement (DRA) combined with extinction or time out. A reversal design was used to evaluate treatment for participants with one function (attention), and a multiple baseline across functions design was used to evaluate the effects of treatment for one participant.

The results of Greer et al. (2013) were that DRA plus EXT was effective in maintaining low rates of behavior for one of three participants whom had one function to problem behavior; however, low rates of problem behavior and consistent mands were observed during DRA plus timeout for the two remaining participants. Unfortunately, when DRA plus time out was implemented by the classroom teachers, it was not effective.

Although, addition of prompting and feedback for Missy’s & Jim’s teachers did produce increases in treatment integrity, and there was a decreased rate in problem behav-

iors. For the final participant, DRA plus time out resulted in decreased aggression and high rates of mands for tangible items.

Although these results do suggest an FA can be conducted within a classroom, there are several limitations. DRA plus EXT was likely ineffective for most participants due to insufficient exposure to extinction and degradation in treatment integrity. Outside uncontrolled sources of influence may have also played a role. FAs are hard to accomplish especially when they are required to have multiple design arrangements. This may not be feasible in most early childhood classrooms; however, modified FA methods such as a brief, trial-based, or precursor analysis might be more feasible. Greer et al. (2013) was a good starting point for conducting a FA in a more naturalistic setting, yet the results did not show a clear improvement when a function-based intervention was implemented. However, it is a great start for many future research projects. n References Greer, B. D., Neidert P. L., Dozier, C. L., Payne, S. W., Zonneveld, K. L. M., & Harper, A. M. (2013). Functional analysis and treatment of problem behavior in early education classrooms.

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 46, 289295.

Briggs-Gowan, M., Carter, A. S., BossonHeenan, J., Guyer, A. E., & Horwitz, S. M. (2006). Are infant-toddler social-emotional and behavioral problems transient? Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 45, 849-858.

Campbell, Susan B., Shaw, Daniel S., Gilliom, Miles. (2000). Early externalizing behavior problems: Toddlers and preschoolers at risk for later maladjustment. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 467-488.

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Preferences for and Reinforcing Efficacy of Different Types of Attention Mary Halbur St. Cloud State University We’ve all heard it: “there is just something about Jonny,” “for some reason, the kids all like Suzie.” We all understand this, as we all have favorite professors, bosses, and friends; however, we don’t know why this happens. Jerome and Sturmy (2008) conducted preference assessments to identify staff members who were preferred and nonpreferred for three adults with developmental disabilities. Following the preference assessments, they conducted reinforcer assessments and found that all three participants worked harder (e.g., to higher breakpoints) with the preferred staff as compared to the level of work with they completed with nonpreferred staff. This was an interesting assessment; however, there was not an evaluation of a possible mechanism for the preferences for specific staff members.

One reason this preference may develop may be associated with the type of attention provided by that staff member or therapist as opposed to the type of attention provided by others.

Previous researchers have demonstrated that different types of attention (i.e., eye contact, praise, physical, conversation, and reprimands) affect an individual’s responding differentially (e.g., Kodak, Northup, & Kelly, 2007; Fisher, Ninness, Piazza, Owen-DeSchryver, 1996), and some types of attention (i.e., praise, physical attention, and conversa-

tion) are more preferred and/or reinforcing than others (e.g., Clay, Samaha, Bloom, Bogoev, & Boyle, 2013; Nuernberger, Smith, Czapar, and Klatt, 2012). Kodak et al. conducted two functional analyses with children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to evaluate this phenomenon. The first was a functional analysis with four conditions (e.g., attention, demand, alone, play) to determine whether attention was a maintaining variable. For the two participants for which this was the case, they conducted another functional analysis which consisted of various attention conditions in which different types of attention (e.g., eye contact, reprimand, tickles, unrelated comments, praise, & physical attention) were provided. They were able to demonstrate that certain types of attention maintained problem behavior at higher levels than other types of attention.

children with autism have distinct preferences for certain types of physical-attention interactions.

There have also been studies in which researchers have evaluated the preference for and reinforcing efficacy of different types of attention with appropriate behaviors.

Nuernberger et al. included various types of physical interactions in a preference assessment, and evaluated whether they functioned as reinforcers for children with autism. Similarly, Clay et al. assessed preferences for other types of social interactions using preference and reinforcer assessments.

Both studies evaluated a package of social interactions with multiple types of physical attention paired with playful vocal statements.

Both studies were able to show that participants displayed preferences for certain types of physical interaction, and these preferences corresponded to the levels of responding in the reinforcer assessments. This may mean that

References

Given that researchers have been able to develop preference hierarchies for different types of attention, and show that these types of attention have differential reinforcing efficacy for both problem behavior and appropriate behavior, it is possible that if an individual consistently delivers a preferred type of attention, whereas another delivers a non-preferred type of attention, an individual may develop a preference for that individual based on those interactions.

Some interesting extensions of this research would be to evaluate whether preference hierarchies for different types of attention are consistent across therapists, and if the type of attention delivered by therapists affects client and student preferences for them. n

Clay, C. J., Samaha, A. L., Bloom, S. E., Bogoev, B. K., & Boyle, M. A. (2013). Assessing preference for social interactions. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 34, 362-371.

Jerome, J., & Sturmey, P. (2008). Reinforcing efficacy of interactions with preferred and nonpreferred staff under progressive-ratio schedules.

Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 41, 221-225.

Kodak, T., Northup, J., & Kelley, M. E. (2007).

An evaluation of the types of attention that maintain problem behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 40, 167-171.

Nuernberger, J. E., Smith, C. A., Czapar, K. N., & Klatt, K. P. (2012). Assessing preference for social interaction in children diagnosed with autism. Behavioral Interventions, 27, 33-44.

Lattal and Wacker Host Special Issue on Recurrence of Operant Behavior 20

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Volume 41, number 2 of the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis (Revista Mexicana de análisis de la conducta) is a special issue celebrating current work on recurrence in operant behavior. Recurrence comes in many forms, but the essential element that connects all recurrence is that some behavior, once eliminated through extinction procedures, comes back to some degree on a future occasion (Lattal & Wacker, 2015).

While every article in this special issue is enlightening, to say the very least, two articles stand out as being particularly important for practitioners. First, Claire St. Peter outlines six reasons why practitioners should know about resurgence. Resurgence is a type of recurrence in which some response—we will call it Response A—is put on extinction. Following extinction on Response A, another response—Response B—is extinguished and during this procedure a resurgence of Response A is seen.

Dr. St. Peter draws parallels between the study of resurgence and common intervention patterns that practitioners carry out. For example, it is not uncommon for a team working with a young child to need to extinguish several responses subsequently, which could lead to a resurgence in the responses earlier extinguished. Dr. St. Peter even highlights those times when someone might actually want resurgence to take place!

In the same issue, Keith Lit and F. Charles Mace (Lit & Mace, 2015) highlight the importance of translational research between the experimental analysis of behavior and applied behavior analysis.

With recurrence related to treatment relapse as their focal point, Lit and Mace outline the limits

of a technology-driven field by demonstrating how basic research can supply additional analyses to problems of treatment failure.

For example, relapse in recovering drug addicts might be hampered through the use of alternative activities in environments in which drug use formerly occurred.

While the experimental research in animal models offers several advantages in control (e.g., history, contextual factors), behavior analysts have not been ones to shy

away from extending animal work to the human condition.

entire behavior change programs.

The remainder of the special issue is thought-provoking. One must appreciate the delicate nature of behavioral intervention. The average practitioner undoubtedly understands that timing is everything when it comes to reinforcing appropriate behavior, but this special issue helps to highlight the importance of timing and other related factors when scheduling

Lattal, K. A., & Wacker, D. (2015). Some dimensions of recurrent operant behavior. Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, 41, 252-268.

n

Lit, K., & Mace, F. C. (2015). Where would ABA be without EAB? An example of translational research on recurrence of operant behavior and treatment relapse. Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis, 41, 269-288.

The entire issue can be downloaded through http://rmac-mx.org/

The digest accepts reviews of journal articles of interest to behavior analysts. Review articles should be written in the active voice and be understood by non-behavioral readers. Typically, digest articles are written in the “newspaper style” with catchy titles, location of the story, and frequent use of action words and phrases.

- Limit all digest articles to 500 words or fewer - Do not include graphical reprints from the journal article - Articles must be published in the last 5 years - Include full reference in APA style - No more than 3 references per article Submit your Digest article to the digest editor at jaackerlundbrandt@stcloudstate.edu

By submitting your article for consideration to BAQ, you agree to BAQ’s right to alter your article’s text, primarily grammar, to fit its current needs.

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