We evaluated a procedure for identifying potential reinforcers with profoundly retarded individuals. In Experiment 1, six persons were repeatedly exposed to 16 stimuli, and approach behaviors to each stimulus were used to identify preferred and nonpreferred stimuli. In Experiment 2, we examined the reinforcing properties of preferred and nonpreferred stimuli by delivering them contingently on the occurrence of arbitrarily selected responses. Results revealed that the preferred stimulus conditions typically produced higher rates of responding than did either the baseline or the nonpreferred stimulus conditions, suggesting that the procedure can be used to assess reinforcer value for individuals with limited behavioral repertoires.

This study evaluated an indirect method of training 45 institutional direct care staff to conduct behavioral programs. Three supervisors were trained to improve teaching behaviors (instructions, prompts, and consequence) used by the direct care staff while working with severely and profoundly handicapped residents. In addition to training, daily feedback was provided to supervisors regarding performance of their staff. Results of a multiple baseline analysis across teaching behaviors (instructions, prompts, and consequences) and content areas (communication and gross motor skills) showed that providing training and feedback to supervisors resulted in increases in correct teaching behavior by direct care staff. However, teaching behavior newly learned in one content area (communication) did not generalize to the other area (gross motor skills). Data collected on resident behavior showed small but noticeable improvement in terms of correct responses and attending behavior during programming. Results are discussed in terms of the benefits of a pyramidal approach to training institutional staff.

This study investigated the effects of interspersing known items during spelling instruction on new words for three mentally retarded students. Following a baseline consisting of the presentation of 10 test words per session, a multielement design was implemented. During interspersal training sessions, previously mastered words were presented alternately with each of 10 test words. During high-density reinforcement sessions, 10 test words were presented and additional reinforcement was provided for task-related behaviors. Throughout all conditions, test words were deleted and replaced after meeting a mastery criterion. Periodic retention tests were administered over mastered words and a cumulative retention test was administered at the end of the experiment. Results showed that high-density reinforcement did facilitate performance over baseline; however, intersperal training was superior to the other conditions in terms of both acquisition rate and short-and long-term retention. In addition, students preferred the interspersal condition when offered a choice.

We conducted an analysis of precurrent skills (responses that increase the effectiveness of a subsequent or "current" behavior in obtaining a reinforcer) to facilitate the solution of arithmetic word (story) problems. Two students with developmental disabilities were taught four precurrent responses (identifying the initial value, change value, operation, and resulting value) in a sequential manner. Results of a multiple baseline design across behaviors showed that the teaching procedures were effective in increasing correct performance of each of the precurrent behaviors with untaught problems during probes and that once the precurrent behaviors were established, the number of correct problem solutions increased.