Premium
Operant Conditioning of Social Speech in the Severely Subnormal and the Use of Different Reinforcers
Author(s) -
BARTON ELIZABETH SPINDLER
Publication year - 1972
Publication title -
british journal of social and clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0007-1293
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1972.tb00829.x
Subject(s) - reinforcement , psychology , extinction (optical mineralogy) , audiology , session (web analytics) , operant conditioning , developmental psychology , multiple baseline design , conditioning , ceiling effect , social psychology , statistics , medicine , psychiatry , computer science , paleontology , alternative medicine , mathematics , pathology , world wide web , biology , intervention (counseling)
A small group of severely subnormal female patients was conditioned with reinforcement procedures to interact verbally. A reversal design showed the effect of reinforcement on the dependent variable, and allowed comparison between the effect of candy and token reinforcement. Candy was demonstrated to increase social speech only slightly above baseline level; tokens increased it approximately 30 per cent (almost to ceiling) and reduced the amount of response variability. Reliability checks on the data collection showed it to be highly reliable. A cue light used during reinforcement sessions had little effect as a conditioned reinforcer in extinction sessions. Although the rate of social speech dropped in the final extinction session, it never returned to the original baseline levels.