BEHAVIORAL ENGINEERING: POSTURAL CONTROL BY A PORTABLE OPERANT APPARATUS 1

Except for a few studies, most research investigating correspondence training procedures has been more analogue in nature. The purpose of the present set of studies was to examine whether a "say-do" correspondence training technique could be used with children in special education classes to improve classroom behavior. The specific behaviors targeted for change included: out-of-seat behavior (Experiment 1), sitting posture (Experiment 2), and on-task behavior (Experiment 3). The say-do procedure used in Experiment 1 resembled that of previous studies, whereas that in Experiment 2 was more elaborate in the specificity of verbal statements required from the children and the feedback given them. The training procedure in Experiment 3 used a format similar to the say-do approach, but stressed visual rather than verbal cuing because it was used with nonverbal children. All three studies used single-subject designs and examined maintenance and/or generalization questions. Experiments 2 and 3 also evaluated whether concomitant changes in performance on academic tasks occurred. The results of the three studies provide strong evidence that correspondence training can be effectively used with educationally handicapped children. Moreover, the successful modification of the "say-do" to a "show-do" procedure in Experiment 3 points out the flexibility of the correspondence training approach.DESCRIPTORS: correspondence training, retarded children, academic behavior, attending behavior, generalizationThere is a growing body of research concerned with the relationship between what people say and what they do. Much of this research is based on the assumption that a correspondence exists between verbal and nonverbal behavior. One implication of this research is that it may be possible in clinical situations to control nonverbal behavior by modifying verbal behavior. The appeal of this training procedure is related to the ready accessibility of an individual's verbal behavior to a trainer and to the fact that with this training, nonverbal behavior may be main-

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving Classroom Behavior in Mentally Retarded Children Through Correspondence Training

Whitman

Scibak

Butler

et al. 1982

“…Gross motor behavior of a simplified nature has also been developed in normal adults. In two studies using portable operant apparatus, the posture of adults was improved from a slouching position to a proper postural position (Azrin, Rubin, O'Brien, Ayllon, & Roll, 1968;O'Brien & Azrin, 1970). Further progress in utilizing operant procedures for developing gross motor skills in a normal population was made by Hardiman, Goetz, Reuter, and LeBlanc (1975) with a preschool child (walking longitudinally through a ladder, climbing stairs, sliding down a board, rolling on the ground, climbing a ladder, and walking on a balance board).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral Coaching in the Development of Skills in Football, Gymnastics, and Tennis

Allison

Ayllon

1980

A review of the literature indicates that methods of skill acquisition based on the operant paradigm have been scientifically validated with many motor behaviors. However, these procedures have been limited to the use of positive reinforcement for correct performance when applied to the acquisition of complex sports skills in natural settings. To find complementary procedures to enhance skill acquisition, a coaching method involving several behavioral techniques was developed that focused on remediation of errors. This coaching method combined the following components: (1) systematic use of verbal instructions and feedback, (2) positive and negative reinforcement, (3) positive practice, and (4) time out. Three sports, football, gymnastics, and tennis, were selected to determine the effectiveness and generality of this behavioral coaching method. A total of 23 male and female subjects, ranging in age from 11 to 35, was included in this study. Baseline data were first collected for each sport under standard coaching conditions. Next, the behavioral coaching method was evaluated depending on the sport in either a multiple baseline or a reversal design. The behavioral dimensions selected were blocking in football; backward walkovers, front hand springs, and reverse kips in gymnastics; and the forehand, backhand, and serve in tennis. Behavioral coaching was immediately effective in increasing the correct execution of complex skills in all three sports. Gains of up to 10 times the baseline performance were achieved in each sport. In football, behavioral coaching resulted in an increase in correct blocking performance from a baseline average of 5 % to 51.3 %. Gymnasts' performances increased from baseline averages of 2.7% to 52.6% across the three skills. In tennis, standard coaching produced an average of 69% correct performance which increased dramatically under behavioral coaching to 579% across the three strokes.

“…Meyer and Mair (1963) described a portable apparatus for achieving this same objective, and reported that it was useful for the clinical treatment of stuttering but, unfortunately, provided no quantitative data as to its effectiveness. The rationale for developing the apparatus here stemmed from the behavioral engineering approach described elsewhere (Azrin, Rubin, O'Brien, Ayllon, and Roll, 1968;Azrin and Powell, 1968). The target behavior was defined as rhythmic speech and the specific response was defined as the spoken word.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A SYNCHRONIZATION EFFECT AND ITS APPLICATION TO STUTTERING BY A PORTABLE APPARATUS¹

Azrin

Jones

Flye

1968

Self Cite

The present study attempted to determine how a rhythmic beat affects ongoing behavior. A regular stimulus beat was presented to normal subjects who had been instructed to push a bar from side to side. Other subjects had been instructed to emit a vocal response. The individual vocal and motor responses became synchronized with the individual beats of the rhythm. The time between stimulus beats determined the modal interresponse time. These results indicate a synchronization effect: ongoing behavior tends to become synchronized with an ongoing stimulus rhythm. An attempt was made to apply these findings to the problem of stuttering, which can be considered as a disturbance of the natural rhythm of speech. Stutterers were instructed to synchronize their speech with a simple regular beat presented to them tactually by a portable apparatus. The result was a reduction of 90% or more of the stuttering for each subject during the period of synchronization. This effect endured for extended periods of spontaneous speech as well as for reading aloud and was found to be attributable to the rhythmic nature of the stimulus and not to other factors. EXPERIMENT I: CONTROL OF SIMPLEMOTOR AND VOCAL RESPONSES BY RHYTHM Rhythmic stimuli are believed to exert substantial behavioral influence, as evidenced by the extensive natural use of music. Yet, the basis of this control by music remains unexplained. One known property of music is that when music is contingent upon a response it can be a reinforcer, as shown by Barrett's (1962) punishment of tics by timeout from music and by Ayllon and Azrin's (1965Azrin's ( , 1968aAzrin's ( , 1968b Weidenfeller, 1962Weidenfeller, , 1963Ellis and Brighouse, 1952). Also, the use of music therapy for mental patients seems to be based on the assumption that music affects the general emotional state. Non-contingent music has often been reported as increasing the level of ongoing behaviors, but these reports are often conflicting (see review by Uhrbrock, 1961). Even when a complex musical sound pattern affects ongoing behavior, the question remains as to which aspect of the complex was responsible. The present study attempted a more analytic study of the effect of rhythm by investigating whether a simple regular beat influenced ongoing behavior. The procedure differed from previous studies of rhythm in that the response was a simple and discrete movement of a bar or a simple vocal response, rather than a complex behavioral sequence; similarly, the rhythmic stimulus was a fixed beat rather than a complex musical pattern. The simple nature of the response and the stimulus permitted the evaluation of any point-to-point correspondence in time between them and the eval-283 1968, 1.,283-295 NUMBER 4 (WINTER 1968)