Fifteen moderately or severely retarded adults listened to music and looked at slides in baseline schedules, reinforcement schedules, and control phases with no contingent relation between responses. Individual analysis of instrumental responding indicated increases in schedules that produced response deprivation, but only once in schedules that…

Five children with autism were taught to match printed words to corresponding pictures. Participants' speed of learning was compared across three training conditions, each involving a 5-s delay of reinforcement, using a within-participants alternating treatments design. In the cue-value condition, a verbal phrase of approval (e.g., "good!") was…

Rabbits were given reinforced training of the nictitating membrane (NM) response using separate conditioned stimuli (CSs), which were a tone, light, and/or tactile vibration. Then, two CSs were compounded and given further pairings with the unconditioned stimulus (US). Evidence of both overexpectation and summation effects appeared. That is,…

Stimulus preference assessments for individuals with developmental disabilities typically involve offering choices among stimuli and providing immediate access to the chosen stimuli. Several researchers have explored the utility of presenting choices verbally, thereby obviating the need to present the choices in tangible form and deliver access to…

We examined some conditions under which a response acquired as a tact might facilitate the establishment of a mand. We taught 3 participants with developmental disabilities to tact the items ranked highest and lowest in a preference assessment and subsequently tested to see if the responses occurred as mands. All participants manded for the highly…