A practical strategy for ongoing reinforcer assessment.

There is a need for practical methods of reinforcer assessment that systematically track ongoing changes in clients' preferences. In this study, the effects of a time-efficient reinforcer assessment package were evaluated in a multiple baseline across 3 preschoolers with autism, comparing individualized item selections by experienced teachers with children's presession preferences for items of various sensory qualities. Systematic assessment of children's reinforcers for correct responding virtually eliminated nontargeted maladaptive behaviors, as well as yielding expected improvements in accuracy. The powerful side-effects of potent reinforcers underline the importance of increased attention to reinforcer assessment in research and practice.

The management of dehydration and incontinence in nonambulatory geriatric patients.

We evaluated a health care routine designed to decrease incontinence and improve the hydration level of nonambulatory nursing home patients. To implement this routine, a 3' X 4' cart was equipped with liquids and toileting equipment. A nurse's aid was assigned the task of taking the cart to each nonambulatory resident in a nursing home and offering specified assistance on a regular basis. Data demonstrated a decrease in physical dehydration, as well as in fecal and urinary incontinence.

Experiments in a community mental health center: increasing client payments for outpatient services.

Although public health care systems often depend on revenue generated from client payment for services, inadequate agency fee payment systems continue to create substantial administrative problems. The first study examined the effects of implementing a system for producing and maintaining routine client fee payment. The second study was a replication of the first study. The Credit Criterion System was designed to: (a) allow clients to establish intra-agency credit by paying cash for each of the first three visits; and (b) pay for services monthly after credit was established. The system resulted in a baseline collection rate of 20%, compared with the Credit Criterion rate of 96.6%. The Credit Criterion System did not create additional administrative costs and it had no effect on attendance. Thus, the Credit Criterion System appears to be a reasonable set of procedures for allowing clients to meet their financial obligations to an agency.

Police and prosecution systems: An evaluation of a police criminal case preparation program.

Program evaluation can provide objective information relevant to decisions on program maintenance. A program to address problems in the preparation of criminal investigation reports in a metropolitan police department was evaluated. The program permanently altered environmental conditions under which reports were prepared to facilitate performance. Police officers, who had previously prepared reports without assistance, visited the Case Preparation Room to prepare reports with assistance from office personnel. Compared to reports prepared without assistance, reports prepared in the Case Preparation Room documented more case elements required by the state legal code for criminal prosecution, were completed in fewer days following arrests, and received higher ratings from Assistant District Attorneys. Operation of a permanent program available to approximately 945 officers proved a practical solution to improving the preparation of criminal investigation reports.

Reduction of police vehicle accidents through mechaniically aided supervision.

Tachograph recorders were installed in 224 vehicles of a metropolitan police department to monitor vehicle operation in an attempt to reduce the rate of accidents. Police sergeants reviewed each tachograph chart and provided feedback to officers regarding their driving performance. Reliability checks and additional feedback procedures were implemented so that upper level supervisors monitored and controlled the performance of field sergeants. The tachograph intervention and components of the feedback system nearly eliminated personal injury accidents and sharply reduced accidents caused by officer negligence. A cost-benefit analysis revealed that the savings in vehicle repair and injury claims outweighed the equipment and operating costs.

In vivo language intervention: unanticipated general effects.

After observing the lack of generalization of language trained in highly structured training sessions using established behavior modification techniques, "incidental teaching" procedures were developed to change the use of specified language behaviors in the natural environment. This paper reports an analysis of the general changes in the language, other than that specifically targeted by the incidental teaching procedures, used by disadvantaged preschool children. The daily language samples of disadvantaged children involved in a previously reported experiment to increase compound sentence usage were reexamined and compared to comparable records of other disadvantaged children and of middle-class children of college parents in order to assess possible general effects of the intervention program. Whereas the language that both groups of comparison children used changed little across the preschool year, the amount of talking by the children in the experimental program increased markedly. Their use of more elaborate vocabulary and more elaborate sentences also increased in direct proportion to the increases in overall language use, such that both language use and language elaboration in the experimental group of children changed from a pattern simlar to the comparison group of disadvantaged children to a pattern similar to the comparison group of middleclass children. It is argued that some general features of the incidental teaching procedure--differentially attending to child overtures and responding relative to the child's selected topic (reinforcer)--contributed to the increase in overall language use beyond the specific language behavior targeted, and that this increase in the probability of children's talking itself resulted in the substantial increases in elaboration seen in the children's spontaneous language. Because, at least in children with fairly well-developed language repertoires, language use is contextually controlled, talking more involves talking in more varied and complex contexts, which inevitably produces the use of more elaborate language.

Peer tutoring among elementary students: educational benefits to the tutor.

To determine whether tutoring might be academically beneficial to the tutor, this study investigated the acquisition of spelling words by three elementary students in a peer tutoring program. The experimental design allowed a simultaneous comparison of each child's gain in performance on comparable word lists on which the child tutored another child, was tutored by another child, or neither gave nor received tutoring. The children's spelling improved nearly an equivalent amount on those words on which they tutored another child as on the words on which they were tutored; no such change was noted on the words on which they neither gave nor received tutoring. These findings, that peer tutoring is profitable for the tutor as well as the tutee, provide a basis for recommending peer tutoring as one method of individualizing education.

Behavioral nutrition: consumption of foods of the future by toddlers.

Behavioral measures of food consumption and tasting were combined with nutrient analysis of foods served at a toddler day-care center to determine whether children at the stage of initial exposure to adult diets would accept textured vegetable protein (TVP) and nonfat dry milk as well as they ate other sources of protein and calcium. Main dishes were prepared alternately with TVP, meat, or neither; others were prepared with or without nonfat dry milk. The variation in ingredients appeared not to affect the amount children ate, the percentage sampling the foods, or the percentage eating half a portion or more. Dishes made with TVP increased protein intake comparable to the amount obtained with meat supplements, and calcium intake increased with nonfat dry-milk supplements. In light of these findings, it appears that TVP and nonfat dry-milk are practical alternative sources of protein and calcium in menus for young children.

A parent advice package for family shopping trips: development and evaluation.

THIS ARTICLE REPORTS ON THE PRIMARY STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF PARENT ADVICE FOR POPULAR DISSEMINATION: (a) developing advice for one specific problem situation, family shopping trips; (b) testing the advice program for benefit to children and convenience to adults; and (c) packaging the advice so it can be used successfully by interested parents. Systematic observation of 12 families using the written advice package on shopping trips revealed its effectiveness in reducing child disruptions and increasing positive interactions between parents and children. These findings, along with interview information from families, showed that the package is usable, effective, and popular with both parents and children, and thus is ready for dissemination to a wide audience of parents-a step that in itself should involve research and evaluation.

Shoplifting prevention: providing information through signs.

Shoplifting is one of the most frequent crimes in the United States, yet there is no agreement about effective prevention procedures. Since most prevention strategies are aimed at either increasing public awareness of the severity of the consequences or increasing the threat of detection, procedures that contain these elements were evaluated. Posting signs around a department of a department store pointing out that shoplifting is a crime, etc., partially reduced shoplifting rates. When merchandise that was frequently taken was identified by signs and stars, shoplifting decreased to near zero. Publicity campaigns to inform the public of consequences for shoplifting may produce desirable results, but identifying likely shoplifting targets, which may increase the likelihood of detection, effectively reduces shoplifting rates.

Contingent observation: an effective and acceptable procedure for reducing disruptive behavior of young children in a group setting.

Since a major task of childhood is learning to get along in a group without disrupting other children's activities, caregivers need explicit guidelines for gentle but effective procedures for dealing with disruptive behaviors in child-care settings. In a day-care center for normal 1- and 2-yr.-old children, an effort was made to develop a procedure that appeared sufficiently humane and educational to be acceptable to parents and day-care workers, and yet effective in reducing disruptive play behaviors. Caregivers used the occasion of disruptive behavior to instruct the child in appropriate alternatives, then had the child sit on the periphery and observe the appropriate social behavior of the other children "sit and watch", for a brief period before inviting him or her to rejoin the play activities. The effectiveness of this procedure was compared with a method commonly recommended for the use with young children: instructing the child, then distracting or redirecting the child to an alternative toy or activity. Contingent observation, combining instruction with a brief timeout (from being a participant in an activity to becoming an observer of the activity), proved considerably more effective in maintaining low levels of disruptions and was considered by caregivers and parents to be an appropriate and socially acceptable method of dealing with young children's disruptive behaviors. Therefore, contingent observation can be recommended for general use in day-care programs for young children.

Design of living environments for nursing-home residents: increasing participation in recreation activities.

Nursing-home residents have frequently been characterized as unoccupied and disengaged. At the outset of the present study, most residents were to be found in their own rooms, not exhibiting gross motor behavior or social interaction, and not participating in appropriate activities. To modify residents' levels of participation with the environment, a manipulative area was provided in the lounge. Participation in the lounge averaged 20% on days when the activity was not available, but increased to a mean of 74% on days when equipment and materials were given and residents were prompted to participate. When prompts were withdrawn and materials were available only by request, mean participation fell to 25%. The findings demonstrate that manipulative activities can support a high level of participation with the environment, if residents are prompted to use equipment and materials.

Incidental teaching of language in the preschool.

"Incidental teaching" denotes a process whereby language skills of labelling and describing are learned in naturally occurring adult-child interactions. In the present study, 15-min daily samples of the spontaneous speech of 11 children were recorded during free play over eight months of preschool. After incidental teaching of compound sentences, increases in unprompted use of compound sentences were seen for all the children, first directed to teachers, and then to children, in accordance with who attended to the children's requests for play materials. The incidental teaching procedure also stimulated spontaneous variety in speech, and appears to have general applicability to child learning settings.

Anti-litter procedures in an urban high-density area.

In urban high-density areas, litter has become an increasingly obvious and pervasive problem. In the present study, repeated measures of the amount of litter on randomly selected yards in an urban low-income housing project were used to evaluate the effectiveness of a series of anti-litter procedures directed at the children residing in the project. Paying children for volume of trash collected resulted in only a small decrease in the number of litter pieces present. Paying them for cleaning assigned yards markedly decreased the level of litter in all sampled yards. Thus, children can be employed to maintain a clean neighborhood in spite of the rapid accumulation of new litter in urban yards.

Recreation as a reinforcer: increasing membership and decreasing disruptions in an urban recreation centre.

It is presumed that recreation activities have a variety of functions for people, from tension reduction to citizenship development; however, a recreation activity's most empirically obvious function is as a reinforcer. This study demonstrates how two recurrent problems of urban recreation programs-recruitment of members and reduction of disruptive behaviors within the program-can be handled simply by contingently adjusting the amount of time the recreation activities are available. When extra time in the recreation center was provided to those youths who brought new members, dramatic increases in membership were achieved. On the other hand, when the closing time for each evening's recreation program was publicly moved forward by a few minutes for each offense, disruptive behaviors were nearly eliminated. Recreation used as a reinforcer can thus improve the basic operation of a recreation center and might similarly enhance other presumed and desired functions of recreation.

Open environment design for infant and toddler day care.

Group care settings for dependent people must be organized to facilitate delivery of responsive care and to prevent inadvertant neglect or deliberate abuse. Accordingly, in an infant and a toddler day-care center, an open environment was examined as a means to increase the visibility of children to staff and of staff-child interactions to the supervisor, and to investigate potential adverse effects of the open environment on infants' and toddlers' activities. These studies demonstrated that: (1) an open environment markedly decreased the amount of time a child could not be seen by any adult and the amount of time staff members' activities were not visible to the supervisor, and markedly reduced the effort required to supervise those who were not immediately visible; (2) an open environment did not adversely affect the sleep of either infants or toddlers; and (3) an open environment is as conducive to small group pre-academic activities with toddlers as is a separate room. These studies convinced us that infant and toddler day care can and should be accomplished in an open environment.