Generalization of the Effects of Teacher‐ and Self‐administered Token Reinforcers to Nontreated Students

Abstract

Ten, black, second-grade boys served in a series of single-subject studies. They were from poor families, did not do well in arithmetic, were deficient in sustained attention, and presented behavior problems at school. One boy was a therapeutic confederate. Of the remaining nine nontreated students, three observed the confederate reinforced by a teacher, three observed the confederate self-reinforce without having an opportunity to use "self-reinforcement" themselves, and three observed self-reinforcement while having an opportunity to use "self-reinforcement." The target behavior was attending. Other measures of outcome were glancing, academic achievement, and accuracy of reinforcement. The basic experimental design consisted of an ABAB withdrawal applied to the confederate while the nontreated students remained on baseline. Generalization was expressed as a ratio (i.e., percent change in the generalization measure divided by percent change in the target behavior). Teacher-administered reinforcers to the confederate did not produce generalization of any kind. Both arrangements of self-administered reinforcers to the confederate produced across-subjects generalization and subject-response generalization. Additionally, the confederate manifested response generalization.

Application of the “Generalization Map” to a Self‐control Intervention With School‐aged Children

“…This lack of a clear reversal effect following a successful treatment for math performance has been documented by other investigators (Fantuzzo & Clement, 1981;Hay, Hay, & Nelson, 1977;Kirby & Shields, 1972). Hay et al (1977) reported a rapid drop in on-task behavior when the on-task contingency was withdrawn; however, there was a negligible drop in math performance following the withdrawal of the math contingency.…”

“…The degree of generalization was quantified by using the generalization ratio, a descriptive statistic designed by Fantuzzo and Clement (1981). This statistic indicates the percentage of treatment effect that generalized to untreated student's target behavior (i.e., math performance).…”

“…(d) In comparison with externally determined reinforcers, some data suggest that grade school children are more productive and will work harder for self-selected reinforcers and the opportunity to choose reinforcers (Brigham & Stoerzinger, 1976). Moreover, these self-control procedures have evidenced a greater generalization capability than externally mediated procedures (Brownell et al, 1977;Fantuzzo & Clement, 1981;Johnson, 1970;Parks et al, 1974). To maximize this treatment impact and generality, O'Leary and Dubey (1979) have urged researchers and clinicians to combine these effective self-control skills into comprehensive intervention packages.…”

“…The rationale is that the child is the best contingency manager because she or he can deliver reinforcement immediately at all times and across all settings (Clement, 1973). Despite the logic of this hypothesis, only a handful of studies have investigated the generality of self-control interventions across persons (Fantuzzo & Clement, 1981;Fantuzzo, Harrell, & McLeod, 1979), settings (Burgio, Whitman, & Johnson, 1980;Drabman, Spitalnik, & O'Leary, 1973;Robertson, Simon, Pachman, & Drabman, 1979;Turkewitz, O'Leary, & Ironsmith, 1975;Varni & Henker, 1979), behaviors (Ballard & Glynn, 1975), and time periods (Arnold & Clement, 1981;Brownell et al, 1977;Felixbrod & O'Leary, 1974;Robertson et al, 1979). These studies differ from our investigation in that they were either conducted in contrived settings or the assessment of generalization was not the primary focus.…”

The Generality and Social Validity of a Competency‐based Self‐control Training Intervention for Underachieving Students

“…The degree of generalization was calculated according to the generalization ratio, a descriptive statistic designed by Fantuzzo and Clement (1981). This ratio quantifies generalization by dividing the percent change for the desired generalization dimension (the untreated student/setting/behavior/time) by the percent change for the treated student's targeted behavior during treatment in the treatment setting X 100.…”