Arranging reinforcement contingencies in applied settings: Fundamentals and implications of recent basic and applied research.

Abstract

Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Eunice K. Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. We thank Amber Mendres and John C. Borrero for their assistance in developing portions of this chapter.

Examining the reinforcing value of stimuli within social and non-social contexts in children with and without high-functioning autism

“…Thus, if a stimulus is consistently delivered contingent upon a response, but does not strengthen that response, it is not considered a reinforcer. SPAs are predictive tools that suggest which stimuli might function as reinforcers, but the true test of whether or not a stimulus is a reinforcer is a reinforcer assessment —a direct test of whether the putative reinforcer does, in fact, strengthen behavior (see DeLeon et al, 2013 for further elaboration of the relation between preference and reinforcer assessments).…”

A comparison of methods for assessing preference for social interactions

“…Furthermore, social interactions may be less harmful than other stimuli commonly used as reinforcers such as foods high in sugar and salt or sedentary leisure activities, especially when a dense schedule of reinforcement is in place. In addition, social interactions are common, and can be practically used as consequences in the natural environment (DeLeon et al, ).…”

Avoidance of Token-Loss by Pigeons

“…Tokens have a long history of being used in the laboratory as reinforcers for both humans (Byron, Himoff, Catania, & Sagvolden, 1977;Critchfield, Paletz, Macaleese, & Newland, 2003;King & Logue, 1990;Silberberg et al, 2008;Weiner, 1962Weiner, , 1963Weiner, , 1969a and nonhuman animals Cowles, 1937;Hackenberg, 2009;Kelleher, 1956Kelleher, , 1958Malagodi, 1967a, b, c;Webbe & Malagodi, 1978;Wolfe, 1936). Token schedules of reinforcement also underlie both monetary systems and critical components of behavior-management programs across numerous applied settings (e.g., Ayllon, & Azrin, 1968;Conyers et al, 2004;DeLeon, Bullock, & Catania, 2013;Fox, Hopkins & Anger, 1987;Kahng, Boscoe, & Byrne, 2003;Kazdin, 1982;Kazdin & Bootzin, 1972;Phillips, 1968).…”

“…Since Allyon and Azrin's (1968) work with psychiatric in-patients, token economies have been one of the most successful, widely used behavioral modification techniques (Kazdin & Bootzin, 1972;Kazdin, 1982). Token economies have been used across a variety of populations and locations to promote appropriate behavior and improve performance including psychiatric in-patients and others diagnosed with mental disorders (Allyon & Azrin, 1968;Dickerson et al, 2005), at-risk youths, juvenile delinquents, and adult felons (Milan & McKee, 1976;Phillips, 1968;Phillips, Phillips, Fixsen, & Wolf, 1971), individuals with developmental disabilities and autism spectrum disorders (DeLeon et al, 2013;Matson & Boisjoli, 2009), typically developed school children (Maggin et al, 2011), and in workplace settings (Fox et al, 1987). One of the advantages of using token economies is that tokens can function not just as conditioned reinforcers, but also as generalized conditioned reinforcers.…”

“…Another effect of and a major advantage of using tokens as conditioned reinforcers is that they can be used in the acquisition of new behavior (DeLeon et al, 2013;Hackenberg, 2009;Kazdin & Bootzin, 1972). After chimpanzees learned to discriminate food-paired tokens from nonfood-paired tokens, food-paired tokens were used as reinforcers for performance on a variety of different tasks (Cowles, 1937;Wolfe, 1936;Zimmerman, 1957).…”