Recently, noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) has been used to reduce challenging behavior in persons with developmental disabilities. In this context, NCR involves reinforcement on a fixed-time schedule irrespective of behavior. The present article reviews studies involving NCR for the treatment of challenging behavior. Based on this review, a clinical guide for the implementation of NCR is delineated. NCR appears to depend on ensuring that reinforcement matches the function of the challenging behavior. Initially, noncontingent reinforcement should be provided on a continuous basis. The schedule can then be faded from continuous reinforcement to a more appropriate level in a number of ways. NCR can also be combined with additional educationally oriented interventions to promote skill development. Given its ease of implementation and other potential advantages, NCR would appear particularly relevant for applied settings. The clinical guide may offer some assistance to practitioners.
The effects of prompting, reinforcer sampling, and assistance on participation and challenging behavior of two adults with severe disabilities were examined under three conditions during a leisure program. For baseline, leisure materials were absent, but there was opportunity for social interaction. Next, leisure materials were provided, but participants were neither prompted nor assisted to use these materials. During intervention, participants sampled the materials and were assisted to use each item during a 5-minute prompting sequence. A reversal design demonstrated that the prompting sequence was associated with increased participation and reduced challenging behavior. These improvements were maintained as the frequency of the prompting sequence was reduced from four times to once per session.
Analyses and interventions were conducted to reduce challenging behaviour in two adolescents with multiple disabilities. A functional analysis of each child's challenging behaviour was conducted initially. Although the results of this functional analysis showed that challenging behaviour occurred during roughly 30 to 60% of the assessment trials conducted under each of several conditions, there was one condition for each child that was associated with little or no challenging behaviour. These conditions were then manipulated using stimulusfading procedures. Initially, the stimuli associated with low rates of challenging behaviour were provided on a nearly continuous and noncontingent basis. Next, exposure to these stimuli was systematically reduced. The present studies suggest that analysis of the conditions associated with low rates of challenging behaviour may be helpful in designing interventions.
This paper describes application of behavioural consultation in an Australian special education setting. Consultation focused on assisting teachers in the development, implementation and evaluation of systematic instructional programs in a number of priority goal areas (e.g., community, domestic, language, recreational, and vocational domains). Consultation occurred in four areas: (a) assessment, (b) goal selection and scaling, (c) developing and implementing instructional procedures, and (d) evaluating child outcomes. Five teachers and five of their students with developmental disabilities participated. After goals were selected, an initial rating of each child’s level of performance with respect to these goals was made using Goal Attainment Scaling (GAS). Next, instructional procedures to achieve each goal were designed and implemented with a subsequent GAS rating made after six months. Progress was noted on 84% of the goals. This result suggests the model may be of some assistance to teachers of children with developmental disabilities. However, the present description should be viewed as a pilot project and case study. Further research would be needed to validate the approach described in this study.
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