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ON THE REINFORCING EFFECTS OF THE CONTENT OF VERBAL ATTENTION
Author(s) -
Fisher Wayne W.,
Ninness H. A. Chris,
Piazza Cathleen C.,
OwenDeSchryver Jamie S.
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.1996.29-235
Subject(s) - psychology , reinforcement , cognitive psychology , content (measure theory) , nonverbal communication , developmental psychology , social psychology , mathematical analysis , mathematics
During a functional analysis, a boy with autism and oppositional defiant disorder displayed destructive behavior that was maintained by attention in the form of verbal reprimands (e.g., “Don't hit me”). In a second analysis, contingent verbal reprimands produced higher rates of the behavior than contingent statements that were unrelated to the target response (e.g., “It is sunny today”), suggesting that some forms of attention were more reinforcing than others. A treatment based on these analyses reduced the behavior to near‐zero levels.