Functional analysis suggested that the problem behavior of an 8-year-old girl with autism was maintained by escape from demands and access to edible items. Noncontingent delivery of an edible item was sufficient to increase compliance and reduce the rate of problem behavior without the use of escape extinction in a demand context. Leaner and…

Preference for mand topography was evaluated for 2 individuals with developmental disabilities who exhibited problem behavior. The results of a functional analysis showed that each participant's problem behavior was maintained by social reinforcement. Participants were taught two novel mand topographies for the same functional reinforcer, and each…

We assessed the effects of reinforcement and no reinforcement for compliance to high-probability (high-p) instructions on compliance to low-probability (low-p) instructions using a reversal design. For both participants, compliance with the low-p instruction increased only when compliance with high-p instructions was followed by reinforcement.…

We studied whether movements associated with tardive dyskinesia (TD) served operant functions in 2 men with developmental disabilities. We found that TD-related movements occurred more frequently in the alone and attention conditions and less frequently in control and demand conditions. Our findings suggest that TD-related movements may not be…

The effects of stimulus availability on preference were evaluated using two conditions of a modified preference assessment. Different preference hierarchies were found in 15-s access conditions than in 15-min access conditions. Subsequent comparisons of a short-availability high-preference stimulus and a long-availability high-preference stimulus…

The purpose of this study was to further evaluate the outcomes of a model program that was designed to train current teachers of children with autism. Nine certified special education teachers participating in an intensive 5-day summer training program were taught a relatively large number of specific skills in two areas (preference assessment and…

Evidence to validate the use of fixed-time (FT) reinforcer delivery (i.e., noncontingent reinforcement) with typically developing populations has been relatively rare in the behavioral literature. In those studies that have provided validation, reinforcer delivery schedules appeared to be prohibitively dense for sustained implementation of…

We evaluated the effects of sleep disruption on the mealtime behavior of a young boy with developmental disabilities. Results showed that bite acceptance was less likely to persist during meals following disrupted sleep, but only when escape extinction was not implemented. Findings are discussed in terms of establishing operations and the effects…

The purpose of the current study was to explore the use of overt and covert self-rules in the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of a chained task by adults with mild developmental disabilities. This research differed from previous research in that the experimenter did not deliver reinforcement for correct responses during training, and…

In the current investigation, a functional analysis suggested that positive reinforcement in the form of physical contact maintained the self-injurious behavior of a girl with developmental and physical disabilities. We used the information obtained from the functional analysis to develop a treatment for noncompliance with walking in which a…

Previous outcome studies have provided descriptions of functional analyses conducted in outpatient clinics (Derby et al., 1992), long-term inpatient programs (Iwata, Pace, et al., 1994), and home environments (Wacker et al., 1998). This study provides a description of 138 children and adults with and without developmental disabilities who were…

Three experiments were conducted to evaluate response allocation of stereotypy during free-operant and restricted-operant conditions. Five children with autism or related developmental disabilities participated in at least one and up to three of the experiments. In Experiment 1, the stereotypic response that emerged as most probable during a…

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate derived manding skills in 2 adults with severe developmental disabilities and language deficits by contriving transitive conditioned establishing operations. Specifically, we evaluated whether a history of reinforced conditional discrimination learning would ultimately result in a derived mand…

Behavioral skills training was used to teach 3 parents to implement discrete-trial teaching with their children with developmental disabilities. Parents learned to implement discrete-trial training, their skills generalized to novel programs, and the children's correct responding increased, suggesting that behavioral skills training is an…

Two distinct analytic methods have been used to identify the function of problem behavior. The antecedent-behavior-consequence (ABC) method (Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, 1982/1994) includes the delivery of consequences for problem behavior. The AB method (Carr & Durand, 1985) does not include consequence delivery, instead relying…