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A COMPARISON OF REINFORCER ASSESSMENT METHODS: THE UTILITY OF VERBAL AND PICTORIAL CHOICE PROCEDURES
Author(s) -
Northup John,
George Teresa,
Jones Kevin,
Broussard Carmen,
Vollmer Timothy R.
Publication year - 1996
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.1996.29-201
Subject(s) - reinforcement , psychology , stimulus (psychology) , preference , audiology , token economy , cognitive psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , statistics , medicine , mathematics
We compared three methods of stimulus preference assessment for verbal children and specifically evaluated the utility of a verbal choice procedure for assessing relative reinforcer value. Using a token system, relative preference for five categories of reinforcers, representing 15 different stimuli, was assessed by three methods: a reinforcer survey, a verbal stimulus‐choice questionnaire, and a pictorial stimulus‐choice procedure. Results showed that the verbal and pictorial stimulus‐choice assessments accurately identified high‐ and low‐preference categories for 3 of 4 participants. Survey results alone often rated multiple categories as high preference, were less likely to identify low‐preference categories, and were less likely to correspond with the results of a reinforcer assessment.