Four procedures for improving the performance of nine motor tasks were compared with six physically handicapped and mentally retarded Canadian Ss, ages 12-25, five of whom were cerebral palsied. (BB)

A multiply-handicapped totally dependent young adult exhibited a steadily increasing rate of response in learning to turn her radio on and off by moving her head to activate a controlling device mounted on the headrest of her wheelchair. Positive reinforcement, prompting, and fading were employed during the intervention (Author/JW)

A severely retarded, institutionalized, 12-year-old female received reinforcement on an adjusted DRO schedule (differential reinforcement for behavior other than self destruction) until a fairly stable response (no scratching or headbanging) was shown. (Author)

A 14-year-old student with moderate retardation rode a stationary bicycle, while rotation of the bicycle wheel operated one of three consequence conditions (television, flashing lights, or vibrator sound). Vibrator sound was the most potent reinforcing consequence. The activity led to the development of exercise behavior with a minimum amount of…

Designed for both parents and teachers, the handbook presents methods for educating the moderately and severely retarded child. Those methods include measuring progress, rewarding and punishing, ways of using rewards and punishers, ways of giving positive reinforcers and punishers, withholding reinforcers (extinction), letting the child reward…

Three-month-old infants learned to activate a crib mobile by means of operant footkicks. Retention of the conditioned response was assessed in the presence of the nonmoving mobile. Although forgetting is typically complete after an 8-day retention interval, infants who received a reactivation treatment, a brief exposure to the reinforcer 24 hours…

Experimental modification of destructive and assaultive sibling interaction was carried out within the home environment. Two brothers (6 and 3 years old) were treated through token positive reinforcement techniques in an effort to improve their behavior towards each other. A "time out" from reinforcement procedures involved an isolation period for…

Four selected subtests from the WISC, Arithmetic, Digit Span, Picture Arrangement and Block Design, were administered to 111 pupils in the third and fourth grades at Florida State University Elementary School. Social reinforcers, i.e., verbal approval and disapproval, were systematically presented to the examinees after specified items and between…

Use of a tangible reinforcer plus social reinforcement was found to be more effective in training a 33-year-old male with profound mental retardation to brush his teeth than social reinforcement alone. Determination of true positive reinforcers and training staff members to carry out such treatment programs are also discussed. (Author/VW)

Five children with autism and mental retardation learned to discriminate objects in response to spoken names or to match amounts to numbers with a combined blocking procedure. The procedure involved presenting the same spoken word until 10 consecutive correct responses occurred and keeping the left-right location of objects constant. (Contains…

Psychology students frequently have misconceptions of basic concepts in operant conditioning. Prior classroom observations revealed that most students defined positive reinforcement as reward and equated negative reinforcement and punishment. Students also labeled positive reinforcement as rewarding good behavior and negative reinforcement as…

Michael (1975) reviewed efforts to classify reinforcing events in terms of whether stimuli are added (positive reinforcement) or removed (negative reinforcement). He concluded that distinctions in these terms are confusing and ambiguous. Of necessity, adding a stimulus requires its previous absence and removing a stimulus its previous presence.…