Two studies are presented in which common prompting procedures were evaluated while teaching children with autism to build Lego(®) play structures. In the first study, most-to-least (MTL) and least-to-most (LTM) prompting were compared. All participants learned to build the play structures when the teacher used MTL, which was associated with fewer errors than LTM. Nonetheless, three participants learned more quickly with LTM. This finding suggests that MTL may prevent errors, but it sometimes slows learning. The second study compared LTM to MTL without and with a delay (MTLD). MTLD provided an opportunity for the child to independently initiate responding but still minimized the likelihood of errors. Results showed that acquisition was nearly as rapid when the teacher used MTLD as LTM but it produced fewer errors than LTM. Best practice guidelines for choosing prompting procedures are proposed.

We compared variations for teaching a sequence of responses through forward chaining. Seven children who had been diagnosed with autism participated in a comparison of teacher completion (TC) of steps beyond the training step and manually guiding the student (SC) to complete steps beyond the training step. A no-completion (NC) condition, in which the steps beyond the training step were not completed, was added to the comparison with 4 of the participants. Results showed that learning occurred with all procedures, although 5 participants acquired the chains most efficiently in the SC condition and the other 2 learned most efficiently in the TC condition. Of the participants for whom an NC condition was included, the tasks were acquired with the shortest average session length and total training time. Despite the potential benefits of TC and SC procedures, NC is a viable option and may be preferable for some students.

Variable reinforcement schedules are used to arrange the availability of reinforcement following varying response ratios or intervals of time. Random reinforcement schedules are subtypes of variable reinforcement schedules that can be used to arrange the availability of reinforcement at a constant probability across number of responses or time. Generating schedule values for variable and random reinforcement schedules can be difficult. The present article describes the steps necessary to write macros in Microsoft Excel that will generate variable-ratio, variable-interval, variable-time, random-ratio, random-interval, and random-time reinforcement schedule values.

This study examined behavioral persistence during extinction following continuous or intermittent reinforcement in the context of an analogue functional analysis of problem behavior. Participants were four children diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder who engaged in problem behavior; and for whom functional analyses indicated sensitivity to social reinforcers. Experimental sessions included four successive 5-min components: No social interaction, continuous or intermittent reinforcement for problem behavior (alternating across sessions), extinction, no social interaction. All participants' problem behavior was more persistent during extinction following continuous reinforcement suggesting that behavior during extinction was affected by the preceding schedule of reinforcement.