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

Abstract

This study evaluated the effects of continuous and discontinuous work-reinforcer schedule arrangements on skill acquisition for three students with autism. Participants were initially exposed to both schedules in an alternating schedules condition where they were taught different but equivalent skills for each schedule. In the discontinuous schedule condition, participants completed work in small increments to gain access to a reinforcer for short periods of time. In the continuous schedule condition, participants completed larger increments of work to gain longer access to a reinforcer. Results showed that two participants mastered the target responses with both schedules and the third participant only met mastery criterion with the continuous schedule. Preference for schedules varied across participants. Session duration was consistently shorter during the continuous work-reinforcer schedule, suggesting that continuous work-reinforcer schedules are more efficient. Participants engaged with the reinforcer less when provided longer access, suggesting that reinforcer access might be reduced with continuous schedules for further efficiency gains.

Preferences for token exchange‐production schedules: Effects of task difficulty and token‐production schedules

“…Although the accumulated exchange‐production schedules were associated with delays to reinforcement, they supported higher rates of work completion and were more preferred. These findings are consistent with other research suggesting accumulated exchange‐production schedules are more efficient and facilitate greater rates of work completion (Bukala, Hu, Lee, Ward‐Horner, & Fienup, ; Ward‐Horner, Cengher, Ross, & Fienup, ), and are more preferred relative to distributed exchange‐production schedules (e.g., Fienup, Ahlers, & Pace, ; Kocher, Howard, & Fienup, ).…”

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

“…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.…”

“…There have been several replications of Fienup et al (2011) that have largely focused on variables influencing preference and performance for response-reinforcer arrangements with older participants who generally preferred a continuous arrangement (e.g., DeLeon et al, 2014;Kocher, Howard, & Fienup, 2015;Ward-Horner et al, 2014). For instance, DeLeon et al (2014) investigated the effects of the type of reinforcer on preference by providing access to edible and activity reinforcers.…”

Arranging response requirements and the distribution of reinforcers: A brief review of preference and performance outcomes

“…For example, clearer understanding of these variables may lead to the selection of different response‐reinforcer arrangements for different types of tasks and reinforcers (e.g., acquisition vs. maintenance tasks; activity‐based vs. edible reinforcers). There is a growing body of applied research examining variables that may affect preference for and performance under various response‐reinforcer arrangements (Bukala, Yao Hu, Lee, Ward‐Horner, & Fienup, 2015; DeLeon et al, ; Kocher, Howard, & Fienup, ; Ward‐Horner, Pittenger, Pace, & Fienup, ). This paper provides a review of these studies and discusses variables (see Table ) that likely influence preference and performance.…”

“…Because maintenance tasks do not require learning, the less frequent reinforcer delivery inherent to continuous arrangements may have been a critical variable influencing preference and performance. Therefore, Kocher et al () extended the aforementioned studies by evaluating preference for and performance under continuous and discontinuous arrangements with skill acquisition tasks. The researchers found that (a) preference was mixed with one participant preferring each arrangement, respectively, and one participant demonstrating no differentiated preference, (b) the number of sessions to mastery did not differ for two of three participants, and (c) overall session duration was consistently shorter for the continuous arrangement for all three participants.…”