The effects of work‐reinforcer schedules on performance and preference in students with autism

Abstract

This study investigated performance under and preference for continuous and discontinuous work-reinforcer schedules in 3 students who had been diagnosed with autism. Under continuous schedules, participants completed all work and consumed all reinforcers in contiguous units. Under discontinuous schedules, work and reinforcer access were broken up into smaller units. During the alternating-schedules phase, session duration was shorter in the continuous schedule for 2 participants. During free choice, all 3 participants preferred the continuous work schedule.

The Effects of Work-Reinforcer Schedules on Skill Acquisition for Children With Autism

“…Taken together, continuous schedules produced similar (Alex and Chris) or better (Lance) sessions to criterion and more efficient session lengths, thus favoring the use of continuous work-reinforcer schedules for skill acquisition of children with similar characteristics to the participants in this study. Although no studies to date have evaluated the effects of workreinforcer schedules with skill acquisition tasks, the efficiency data were similar to those found in studies that evaluated previously mastered tasks (Bukala et al, 2015;DeLeon et al, 2014).…”

“…The efficiency advantage of continuous schedules is important and has been replicated across the current study and two others (Bukala et al, 2015;DeLeon et al, 2014). Efficiency is important because the time saved by conducting continuous schedule sessions could result in more skill acquisition opportunities.…”

Effects of Reinforcer Magnitude and Quality on Preference for Response-Reinforcer Arrangements in Young Children with Autism

“…Unlike previous studies (e.g., Bukala et al, 2015;DeLeon et al, 2014;Ward-Horner et al, 2014), the present study demonstrated that both participants initially preferred the discontinuous arrangement, which resulted in shorter delays and more frequent reinforcer access. It is possible that participant characteristics contributed to the participants' initial preference, as younger participants may respond more impulsively than older participants (Logue, Forzano, & Ackerman, 1996).…”

“…That is, the discontinuous arrangement in the present study consisted of two units of five responses with each unit followed by 5 min of reinforcer access, whereas the discontinuous arrangement in previous studies consisted of at least five response-reinforcer units with 30 s to 3 min of reinforcer access per unit. Furthermore, for three out of the five previous studies (Bukala et al, 2015;DeLeon et al, 2014;Kocher et al, 2015), the duration of continuous reinforcer access in the continuous arrangement was 5 min, which was the same duration of the discontinuous arrangement in the present study. Therefore, it is possible that the participants' initial preference was, in part, a function of fewer response-reinforcer units with longer duration reinforcer access in the discontinuous arrangement.…”

“…Several studies have shown that, under certain conditions, participants prefer to complete a larger set of responses followed by longer duration of access to a reinforcer instead of completing several smaller sets of responses followed by brief reinforcer access that result in the same overall amount of work and reinforcement (Bukala, Hu, Lee, Ward-Horner, & Fienup, 2015;DeLeon et al, 2014;Fienup, Ahlers, & Pace, 2011;Ward-Horner, Pittenger, Pace, & Fienup, 2014). For instance, Fienup et al (2011) provided a participant a choice to complete either 120 math problems consecutively followed by 18 min of reinforcer access (continuous arrangement) or six sets of 20 math problems with each set followed by 3 min of reinforcer access (discontinuous arrangement).…”