The purpose of this experiment was to establish discriminative control of responding by an antecedent stimulus using differential punishment because the results of past studies on this topic have been mixed. Three adults with mental retardation who exhibited stereotypy not maintained by social consequences (i.e., automatic reinforcement) participated. For each subject, stereotypy occurred frequently in the presence of a stimulus correlated with nonpunishment of stereotypy and rarely, if ever, in the presence of a stimulus correlated with punishment of stereotypy. Latency measures showed that the antecedent stimulus correlated with punishment served as the discriminative stimulus for the suppression of stereotypy. These results are important insofar as they show that discriminative control by an antecedent stimulus develops with punishment, and because it sometimes may be desirable to establish such control of socially inappropriate behavior.

The use of rate-building procedures to encourage the production of high response rates and to develop fluency has been increasingly justified by research on precision teaching and automaticity. Rate-building procedures often ensure both speed and accuracy, and claims have been made that such procedures result in greater retention, persistence, and generalization of trained skills, as well as preference by students. Given the potential importance of these claims for behavior analysts and educators alike, this review assesses the validity, generality, and implications of research on rate building. The review revealed sparse empirical evidence that retention, persistence, and generalization of skills result from the use of rate-building procedures when the effects of practice and reinforcement rate are controlled. Given the results of this review, the implications are discussed in the context of behavior-analytic research (e.g., behavioral momentum), and further research is recommended.

Weighted vests sometimes are recommended by occupational therapists, and other professionals who work with behavior analysts, to decrease inappropriate behavior (e.g., self-injury) in children with autism. If these claims were reliable, then the use of such vests would be a powerful and easily implemented intervention. However, the utility of using weighted vests as an intervention for problem behavior in autism has not been examined thoroughly in controlled research studies. We investigated the effects of a weighted vest on sensory-maintained self injury in an adolescent with autism across various environmental conditions. In most conditions, the vest did not decrease self injury. In conditions wherein the vest decreased self injury, it was found that the effects were not due to the deep-pressure therapy per se.

Stereotypical behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement often does not result in harm but may be undesirable in some situations. In the current investigation, participants were 2 individuals who engaged in nonharmful stereotypical responses shown in an analogue functional analysis to be insensitive to social contingencies. After bringing these responses under stimulus control using differential punishment, both participants learned a mand to terminate punishment for stereotypy. We also assessed whether the mand could be brought under stimulus control.

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Problem behavior can interfere with learning, the development of appropriate skills, and socialization in persons with developmental disabilities. In severe cases, problem behavior could result in life-threatening injury. For one 21-month-old participant diagnosed with autism engaging in severe problem behavior for whom reinforcementbased interventions had failed, punishment was implemented. After the efficacy of punishment alone was evaluated, it was implemented concurrent with response-independent attention. Problem behavior was suppressed and appropriate toy play emerged as a function of these combined interventions. Thus, punishment in combination with response-independent attention was an effective intervention for severe, attention-maintained problem behavior.

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