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THE EFFECTIVENESS OF AND PRESCHOOLERS' PREFERENCES FOR VARIATIONS OF MULTIPLE‐SCHEDULE ARRANGEMENTS
Author(s) -
Tiger Jeffrey H.,
Hanley Gregory P.,
Heal Nicole A.
Publication year - 2006
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.2006.48-06
Subject(s) - reinforcement , psychology , extinction (optical mineralogy) , stimulus control , developmental psychology , schedule , stimulus (psychology) , discriminative model , social psychology , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , neuroscience , paleontology , computer science , nicotine , biology , operating system
Multiple schedules of reinforcement have been used to teach children to recruit attention only when it is available, thereby minimizing disruptive requesting during instructional activities. This procedure involves alternating periods of continuous reinforcement (CRF) with periods of extinction and correlating each period with a distinct and continuous discriminative stimulus. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of and children's preferences for multiple schedules in which (a) two different stimuli, one correlated with reinforcement (S+) and another correlated with extinction (S‐), were presented; (b) only an S+ was presented (i.e., no stimulus was correlated with extinction), and (c) neither an S+ nor an S‐ was presented (i.e., a mixed schedule). S+/S‐ and S+ arrangements were similarly effective for 7 children, but 3 preferred the S+/S‐ condition and 4 preferred the S+ condition. Correlational analyses suggested that children who responded more effectively given the S‐ (discrimination indexes were relatively high) preferred the S+/S‐ condition, whereas children who responded less effectively given the S‐ preferred the S+ condition. The implications of these findings for arranging multiple schedules for social responses are discussed.