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A CUEING DEVICE FOR THE ACCELERATION OF THE RATE OF POSITIVE INTERACTION
Author(s) -
Stuart Richard B.
Publication year - 1970
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.1970.3-257
Subject(s) - citation , psychology , acceleration , psychoanalysis , computer science , library science , physics , classical mechanics
This paper describes and illustrates the use of an apparatus1 that might be used to extend a therapeutic force into home settings while at the same time generating data on the effectiveness of the procedure. It is believed that the economies of time that could result from such an instrument will prove valuable in extending the resources of behavior modifiers. The instrument is designed to permit the cueing of positive interactions between two or more persons. The importance of the exchange of positives in parent-child interactions has been suggested by Stuart (in press, a), who has shown that families producing delinquents can be differentiated from families that do not produce delinquents by determining the proportion of positive social exchanges made during structured interview situations. In this work, a feedback apparatus (Stuart, in press, b) was used to permit parents and adolescents to signal to each other-via lights, sounds and/or tally counts-their positive and negative reactions to each other's behavior simultaneously and immediately. While wide within-group variations were noted, between-group comparisons demonstrated that the families of nondelinquents used more than three times as many positively as opposed to negatively perceived maneuvers; the families of delinquents relied upon approximately equal numbers of positive and negative maneuvers. The subsequent pilot study then suggested that it may be possible to interrupt the delinquent careers of certain adolescents by accelerating the rate of positive exchanges during family interactions. As an outgrowth of this work, an apparatus was constructed that may permit the cueing and monitoring of positive exchanges in natural home and school environments. The apparatus' consists of a recycling interval timer (Industrial Timer Corp. Model TDAF) that can be set to sound an "aversive" buzz at intervals of from 1 to 60 min, a button located at the top of the timer, which automatically resets the timer at a predetermined interval (forestalling the buzz), tally counters (Allied Electronics Model CES0, 115 vac) to measure both the number of times the buzzer is