Premium
CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING WITH SCHOOL PROBLEMS
Author(s) -
Cantrell Robert P.,
Cantrell Mary Lynn,
Huddleston Clifton M.,
Wooldridge Ralph L.
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
journal of applied behavior analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1938-3703
pISSN - 0021-8855
DOI - 10.1901/jaba.1969.2-215
Subject(s) - contingency , contingency management , psychology , warrant , reinforcement , referral , token economy , developmental psychology , social psychology , psychiatry , nursing , intervention (counseling) , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , financial economics , economics
Contingency contracting procedures used in managing problems with school‐age children involved analyzing teacher and/or parental reports of behavior problem situations, isolating the most probable contingencies then in effect, the range of reinforcers presently available, and the ways in which they were obtained. The authors prepared written contracts delineating remediative changes in reinforcement contingencies. These contracts specified ways in which the child could obtain existing individualized reinforcers contingent upon approximations to desired appropriate behaviors chosen as incompatible with the referral problem behaviors. Contract procedures were administered by the natural contingency managers, parents and/or teachers, who kept daily records of contracted behaviors and reinforcers. These records were sent to the authors and provided feedback on the progress of the case. Initial results of this procedure have been sufficiently encouraging to warrant recommending an experimental analysis of contingency contracting as a clinical method.