The Effects of Interspersed Trials and Density of Reinforcement on Accuracy, Looking Away, and Self-Injurious Behavior of a Child with Autism

This research examines the effects of task interspersal and density of reinforcement on several behaviors of an autistic 6-year-old boy during the performance of a visual matching task and two auditory matching tasks. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of interspersing high and low accuracy tasks on correct matching responses, positions of matching responses, looking away, and self-injurious behavior (SIB). The effects of interspersed trials were evaluated using an ABAB multiple treatments design. Results indicated that interspersed trials produced slightly more correct responses during the visual matching task; however, correct responses decreased during the other two tasks. The use of interspersed trials also decreased looking away from the stimuli and SIB. Experiment 2 evaluated the effects of reinforcement density apart from task interspersal. Two conditions, reinforce-corrects-only and reinforce-all-responses, were compared in Experiment 2. Correct responses increased slightly for all three tasks during the reinforce-all-responses condition. Looking away and SIB were very infrequent throughout Experiment 2.

Grantor dc:publisher

University of North Texas

Year dc:date

2000

Author dc:creator

• Ybarra, Rita

Contributors dc:contributor

• Rosales Ruíz, Jesús
• Greenspoon, Joel
• Smith, Richard

• Autistic children -- Behavior modification -- Case studies.
• Reinforcement (Psychology).
• visual matching task
• autism
• reinforcement
• task interspersement

Statement dc:rights

• Public
• Copyright
• Ybarra, Rita
• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

oclc: 47233214
untcat: b2302286
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc2485/
ark: ark:/67531/metadc2485

OAI identifier oai:identifier

info:ark/67531/metadc2485