The effects of three levels of treatment integrity (100%, 50%, and 0%) on child compliance were evaluated in the context of the implementation of a three-step prompting procedure. Two typically developing preschool children participated in the study. After baseline data on compliance to one of three common demands were collected, a therapist implemented the threestep prompting procedure at three different integrity levels. One integrity level was associated with each demand. The effects of the integrity levels were examined using multielement designs. The results indicate that compliance varied according to the level of treatment integrity that was in place.DESCRIPTORS: noncompliance, preschool children, three-step prompting, treatment integrityTreatment integrity refers to the extent to which a treatment is implemented as designed. In research, behavioral interventions are likely to be implemented with near-perfect integrity, but in practice settings this is not always so. A number of studies have examined the effects of behavioral interventions when implemented at less than perfect levels of integrity. For example, Northup, Fisher, Kahng, Harrel, and Kurtz (1997) evaluated varying levels of integrity for a differential reinforcement plus time-out procedure. Appropriate behavior was reinforced on 100% of occasions, 50% of occasions, or 25% of occasions. In addition, time-out was implemented for aberrant behavior using these same values. Results showed that intervention effects were maintained at 100% integrity levels even when time-out was implemented at 50% integrity. Vollmer, Roane, Ringdahl, and Marcus (1999) examined differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) at varying integrity levels. They found that after exposure to DRA at 100% integrity (i.e., appropriate behavior was reinforced each time it occurred; problem behavior was never reinforced), lower levels of integrity did compromise intervention effects. However, participants exhibited a general bias toward appropriate behavior during many of the varying integrity levels, presumably because their recent history with the 100% integrity phase predisposed them to engage in appropriate behavior.Although these studies provide a start, more research on the effects of behavioral interventions at varying levels of integrity is needed. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of varying levels of treatment integrity on child compliance in the context of the implementation of a multistep prompting procedure (Horner & Keilitz, 1975). This study extends the existing research on treatment integrity of behavioral interventions by conducting a parametric analysis of an antecedent-based intervention (prompting) as opposed to a consequencebased intervention (reinforcement). METHOD Participants and SettingJake (a 4-year-old boy) and Cara (a 4-yearold girl), the first 2 children nominated for the study, participated. Neither of the participants had a psychiatric diagnosis or a developmental Requests for reprints should be sent to David A. Wilder,

No abstract

We examined the use of noncontingent reinforcement to decrease self-injury and increase bite acceptance in a child who exhibited food refusal. First, a brief functional analysis suggested that self-injury was maintained by escape from food presentation. Next, we evaluated an intervention that involved noncontingent access to a video during feeding sessions. Results of the intervention showed a decrease in self-injury and an increase in bite acceptance.

Researchers in recent years have made much progress towards understanding why some children struggle to learn to read. However, little of this research has involved children with intellectual disability associated with an IQ < 70 (ID, also called mental retardation). In the present analysis, the authors examined cognitive similarities and differences between stronger and weaker decoders, all of whom have ID. The 65 children with ID in the present analysis were initially referred by their teachers for a study that involved training basic phonological reading skills. The present analysis compares 21 children who were excluded from the training study because their decoding skills were already too high with 44 children whose decoding skills were low enough for the training study. The groups were compared on general intelligence, language ability, phonemic awareness and phonological memory. Initial analyses showed that the stronger decoders were significantly better than weaker decoders in language ability, phonemic awareness and rehearsal in phonological memory, but not in intelligence. They were also significantly older than weaker decoders. When age was covaried out, the groups differed significantly only in rehearsal in phonological memory, although the difference for phonemic awareness was marginally significant when the poorest performers were excluded. When intelligence is substantially limited, the ability to rehearse or refresh phonological codes in working memory plays a major role in determining children's success in learning to read. This ability appears to be more important than intelligence, language ability and phonemic awareness. It is possible that the reason the phonemic awareness measure was not as good at distinguishing the groups as the phonological rehearsal measure was because the former did not involve assembling phonological output. It is suggested that it is the combination of poor phonological representation and poor phonological output assembly that makes decoding difficult for some children with ID.

We examined intelligence-related differences in explicit and implicit learning using an artificial grammar paradigm. Young adults with and without mental retardation completed a sequence-learning and identification task. For some participants, sequences were constructed following an artificial grammar; for others, sequences were random. Explicit learning was determined by ability to learn and later identify random sequences. Implicit learning was determined by the tendency to incorrectly identify new grammatical sequences as seen before, relative to new nongrammatical sequences. Participants with mental retardation did more poorly than participants without mental retardation on explicit learning but just as well on implicit learning. Results suggest that learning of complex materials, when accomplished through implicit processing, is functionally equivalent in individuals with and without mental retardation.