Association for Behavior Analysis International

Massed trial instruction (MTI) and task interspersal (TI) are frequently used variations of discrete trial training. Available research suggests that TI is less efficient in facilitating response acquisition than MTI but has not yet addressed which procedure facilitates better maintenance of skills. The present study was designed to compare MTI and TI with respect to response acquisition and maintenance. Parents selected two skill sets. Four children were taught targets from skill 1. Skill 2 was taught using MTI and TI. TI also used targets from skill 1. All targets within skill 1 were probed prior to each session. Acquisition of skill 2 and maintenance of skill 1 during MTI versus TI were compared using an alternating treatments design. Data collection is ongoing but will be completed by December 1st. Results thus far replicate previous findings that TI produces slower acquisition than MTI (Figure 1). Results also suggest both procedures may produce equivalent maintenance (Figure 2). Final conclusions will be made when all data are collected. Implications for behavioral programming will be discussed.

Feedback is critical for learning (Hattie & Timperly, 2007), however, many times students with disabilities struggle to obtain or understand the feedback they are given. The purpose of this poster is to disseminate findings of a systematic literature review designed to determine the effects of interventions designed to recruit feedback or praise. Authors will discuss identified articles, and results from the synthesis, including participant demographics and characteristics of interventions. Additionally, authors will discuss whether the literature meets the quality indicators set forth by the Council for Exceptional Children to determine whether this is an evidence-based practice.

This study examined the effects of using positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement to increase appropriate question-asking in a 10-year old student. A functional assessment suggested an escape to tangible function to off task behaviours in the classroom. The study used visual, gestural, and verbal prompts to encourage appropriate question-asking behaviours to reduce work avoidance. Question/body-break cards were placed on the student’s desk and the student was encouraged to use these cards to request body breaks or ask questions throughout the day. As the child progressed the cards were reduced. The intervention took place over a 5-day period. The student’s appropriate question-asking behaviour accelerated from 0.3 instances per minute to 1.5 instances per minute. The question-asking/body break cards became a desired item to the student, increasing the probability of success for the intervention. The student’s average off-task behaviour decreased from 12.1 instances per minute to 9.4 instances per minute. The question-asking/body break cards became a conditioned reinforcer, and the student began to economize the use of the cards. These findings support the use of positive reinforcement of appropriate question-asking behaviours and their beneficial impact on a student’s relationship with educators and on future academic success.

Although lying is a major concern for many caregivers (Alwin, 1989; Gervais, Tremblay, Desmarais-Gervais, & Vitaro, 2000), there is little behavior analytic research on effective, practical interventions. Studies have shown that a moral story, instruction, or rule implying reinforcers for honesty produced statistically significant improvements in children admitting a transgression (Lee et al., 2014; Talwar, Arruda, & Yachison, 2015; Talwar, Yachison, & Leduc, 2016). We evaluated an intervention package comprised of this moral story, instruction, and rule in combination with praising honest reports when reinforcement favored lying. A failure to replicate the initial increase in honesty using this treatment package in a reversal design was observed for one participant. To date, using the logic of a multiple baseline design across participants, the intervention package has shown increases in honest reports. We are in the process of further evaluating the within-subject reliability of our current findings. Moreover, we are evaluating reinforcement of correspondence (i.e., Differential Reinforcement of Honesty) as an alternative intervention to increase honesty.

Daily Behavior Report Cards (DBRCs) have shown to be a successful intervention for improving classroom behavior for students considered to display challenging behaviors. DBRCs have been used for students with emotional/ behavioral disorder in an effort to improve academic and social outcomes. Few studies have examined the use of DBRCs for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Even fewer studies have examined the intersection of young (i.e., early childhood) students with IDD in extended school year settings (ESY). The authors examined the effectiveness of DBRCs for young students with IDD in ESY settings. The research questions were: 1. Are DBRCs an effective intervention for improving behavior during ESY services for young students with IDD? 2. Can teachers of young students with IDD effectively implement DBRCs as a behavior intervention during ESY services?

Students who are identified deaf/hard of hearing struggle with social skills largely because of their limited access to a social community with whom they can interact fluently (Cawthon et al., 2015; Shogren, 2013). For example, if a student is fluent with American Sign Language (ASL) but spends most of the day interacting with hearing peers who use vocal speech to converse, communication breakdowns may cause frustration. Video modeling is an effective strategy for teaching a variety of skills and social behaviors. Video modeling has its origins in Bandura’s (1977) theory of social learning. The approach is for participants to view appropriate behaviors exhibited by peer models. This study used a multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the effects of video modeling to teach coping strategies to students identified as DHH. Students were taught different coping strategies to use throughout the day. Percent of opportunities data was taken on the number of opportunities a student had to engage in a coping strategy versus how many times they engaged in a coping strategy. Results of visual and Tau-U analyses indicated increases in the use of coping strategies after the intervention was implemented. Social validity measures indicated the students enjoyed the intervention.

The purpose of the study was to examine the effects of Behavioral Skills Training (BST) with peer models on the interactive play with students with moderate to severe disabilities in the classroom. Four students with disabilities and four typically developing students participated in this study. Two separate multiple baseline designs across participants were used in this study. The first multiple baseline design focused on the accuracy of peer models’ implementation of the play intervention steps, and the second focused on the students with multiple disabilities and the percent of intervals of interactive play. In the first intervention phase, experimenters used BST to teach peer models to implement three interactive play activities with target students. During the second intervention phase, peer models implemented the previously mastered procedural steps using picture task analyses as cues in order to teach target students to engage in interactive play activities.

This review addresses the use of peer-mediated interventions (PMI) to promote social interaction between early childhood students with disabilities and their peers (aged 3 to 8). The purpose of this review is to (a) identify the characteristics and components of peer-mediated social interaction interventions, (b) evaluate the effectiveness of PMI by conducting an analysis of research designs and intervention results, and (c) suggest directions for future research. This review includes 13 English language peer-reviewed studies published between 2008 and 2018 and will highlight the increasing contributions of recent research to this field. The method for search process was aligned with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) statement. Preliminary results indicate participants in the majority of the reviewed studies demonstrated an increase in social interaction (e.g., initiations, responses, and continuation) when peer training occurred. This poster will also present limitations of reviewed research, directions for future research, and implications for practice.

We followed sixteen male high-school students practicing a short game "tailored" for the purpose of this study once per week throughout a full semester. Students were placed in four stations, each containing an equal number of items (e.g., bean bags). The game challenges participants to collect as many objects as they can from other stations within a limited time frame and to place these objects in their own station. When this brief game ends, the number of objects inside the boundaries of each station determines the score of the game and the winning team. Rules of the game were manipulated through four different "difficulty domains": Duration, Intensity, Complexity and Distracters during performance. Dependent variable was students' misbehavior. A multielement design showed that the highest levels of misbehavior occurred during intensity sessions, a pattern that became more pronounced as the task prolonged. The poster presents the game structure, data reflecting the variability of misbehavior rates across the different versions and recommendation for implementing the game for assessment as well as treatment purposes.

In a setting where all students in the classroom are diagnosed with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), teachers are often faced with frequent disruptive behaviors, highlighting the need for effective classroom management strategies to promote student on-task behavior and decrease disruptive behavior. Given that students with EBD often lack appropriate social skills, as well as frequently emit challenging behavior, combining group contingency and positive peer reporting interventions may represent an efficient way to address student needs and promote positive student outcomes. It was hypothesized that students would benefit from the structured opportunity to discuss positive behaviors and to practice prosocial skills, while also working to earn rewards through a randomized dependent group contingency to improve behavior. An ABAB design across three classrooms was implemented in an alternative school setting with students in first through sixth grade students diagnosed with EBD. Results indicated an increase in engagement and decrease in disruptive behavior during intervention phases. There was also a decrease in negative peer interactions and an increase in positive peer interactions during intervention phases. Given high interobserver agreement, adherence data, and clear changes in behavior across phases, I have a high degree of confidence that the intervention led to behavior change.

Problem behavior in children with an autism diagnosis can be a barrier to successfully participating in an inclusive setting with same-aged peers. It can also prevent children with autism from creating meaningful relationships and friendships with their peers. For this study, we introduced three yoked-contingency protocols in to an inclusive Kindergarten classroom to determine their effectiveness at reducing problem behaviors for a student with autism. The participants are nine students in a kindergarten classroom at a private day school between the ages of five and six years old; one of whom has an autism diagnosis. The protocols introduced in the classroom were SLR (Social Listener Reinforcement), Peer Tutoring, and Empathy Training. The protocols were run in small groups of two peers at a time. The protocols were run until our target peer with autism had reached predetermined mastery criteria. The problem behaviors that were measured included: inappropriate comments, aggression, uncooperative behavior, yelling, non-functional vocalizations, crying, and physical stereotypy. Data is currently continuing on two of the three protocols, but to date we have noted a decrease or low rates in the student’s occurrence of aggression, crying, uncooperative behavior, and physical stereotypy, and non-functional vocalizations.

Schools often provide emotion-regulation intervention support prior to or after behavior incidents occur. However, there is a lack of research on school-based interventions used in-vivo during pre-curser behaviors (e.g., off-task behavior and increased heart rate) to decrease the likelihood of more severe problem behavior. This study used an ABABCBC design to analyze the effectiveness of self-monitoring behavior and physiology in addition to several emotion-regulation lessons from the Zones of Regulation curriculum. Interval time sampling recording was used to track students' on-task, non-disruptive off-task, and disruptive off-task behaviors. After a baseline phase, portions of the Zones of Regulation curriculum were taught to help students learn how to identify, categorize, and regulate their emotions. In the first intervention phase, students self-monitored their behavior and physiology (i.e., heart rate). In the second intervention phase, students participated in the same self-monitoring intervention while wearing a heart rate monitor smartwatch set to vibrate when their heart rate rose above average resting rate. Findings suggest self-monitoring classroom behavior and self-monitoring heart rate helped students increase on-task behavior and reduce off-task behaviors, and the addition of smartwatch heart rate notifications had little influence on student behavior.

Normative data can help educators identify atypical behavior, develop goals for underperforming students, and evaluate social validity outcomes for children following intervention. However, most published data on the normative “behavior” of school children is in fact collected through indirect rating scale measures. This lack of direct observation or use of standard dimensions of behavior could lead to imprecise assessment and goals, and does not lend itself to the application of behavior analysis. This poster will describe duration data of attending to teaching materials, frequency of verbal operants used in response to teaching materials, duration of independent and peer play, and rate of corrections provided by a teacher. These data were taken from five different preschools and one first grade classroom on the island of O’ahu. Children observed were presumably neuro-typical. It is recommended to increase the number of subjects within current demographics and expand data collection to other age groups.

Alternative seating is an environmental arrangement with limited evidence for individuals with developmental disabilities. Educators are often asked to incorporate strategies despite empirical evidence. Alternative seating is one strategy with limited evidence for individuals with DD commonly found in classrooms. The current study examined the effects alternative seating versus traditional seating of on task behavior and problem behavior for four elementary school students.

When a token economy is not appearing to create the desired degree of motivation and reinforcement of desired behaviors for its targeted elementary school students, the 'automatic' response of "Just go get better backup reinforcers!" is often not an option, and arguably, shouldn't be. Other aspects, including individual components, and the strengths of associations between behavior, token, and backup should be assessed systematically. Similarly, the extra effort of assessing for, in a systematic fashion, alternate (especially non-material, no cost) backup reinforcers can identify intangible social and attention based reinforcers that middle school kids might actually really want far more than yet another plastic spider ring or cartoon character pencil sharpener. This poster presents a framework for systematically evaluating the salience of tokens and back up reinforcers currently in use in an elementary school token economy, prompting teacher ideas for additional tokens and reinforcers to add, and improving the impact of both the new and currently used ones. Noteworthy aspects of THIS proposed framework include integration of systematic guidelines for such evaluation, including those in Foxx's fundamental "Increasing Behaviors.." text, the "Components, Connections, Consequences, and Context" model, as well as the fundamental "Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence" 3 part contingency, Donabedian's "Structure-Process-Outcome" model, and behavioral analysis modifications of Haddon's Injury Control Strategies and Matrix. Additionally, and very importantly, this rubric is powered by its grounding in and development by the perspectives of the middle school student first author.

Anxiety is a multi-component construct involving affective states (e.g., subjective fear), cognitions (e.g., thoughts, beliefs) behavioral patterns (avoidance), and associated physiological arousal (e.g., increased heart rate, changes in respiration patterns) (Moskowitz et. al 2017). Behavior analysts frequently rely on direct observation measures to quantify observable behaviors associated with anxiety, agitation, and/or stress for individuals with limited verbal skills (e.g., increased rocking, change in tone of vocalizations) while also attending to environmental variables associated with anxiety or stress. Although direct observation is effective for identifying behavioral manifestations of anxiety, this type of measurement may result in incomplete information as anxiety and stress are internal states that may not be accessible through direct observation. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness and utility of using wearable biomarker devices, combined with functional assessment screening and behavioral observations, to develop interventions to increase the coping and self-management skills of high school students who experience significant anxiety. We identified five high school students, with a diagnosed anxiety disorder, who were reported by their teachers and therapists as engaging in challenging behavior associated with anxiety. We then conducted an initial screening using the Functional Assessment Screening Tool (Iwata et al.2013) and the Functional Assessment Interview ()’Neill et al., 1997). We then conducted direct observations using an adapted version of the Functional Assessment Direct Observation Form (O’Neill et al., 1997). In addition, each participant wore a Spire device and an Empatica E4 Wrist band to monitor and record physiological indicators of stress and anxiety. We then combined data from behavioral observations with data form the wearable devices to 1) determine if each participants challenging behavior was associated with physiological indicators of anxiety and 2) develop an appropriate function-based intervention in collaboration with the school-based team. Data from the wearable devices indicated that two of the five participants showed increases in physiological indicators of stress and anxiety that were associated the occurrence of target behaviors. Interventions for these two individuals were implemented in the contact of an alternating treatments design. The intervention consisted of a calming activity using a visual app with the Spire device. Both participants were prompted to use the app at the beginning of class periods and activities associated increases physiological indicators of anxiety. The participants were also prompted to use the calming app whenever they experienced anxiety. Although both students used the consistently and independently, neither showed a decrease in physiological indicators of anxiety. In fact, one participant showed an increase in levels of anxiety on days he used the app. The results suggest that wearable devices may be a useful tool in identifying situations in which school-age students experience significant levels of anxiety. However, more research is needed to identify effective interventions for these individuals.

Disruptive behaviors such as elopement, calling-out, and aggression are often a major barrier to instruction in preschool classrooms. One widely used class-wide behavior management system built around an interdependent group contingency is Class-Wide Functionally-Related Intervention Teams (CW-FIT). To date, the first author has only been able to find one study on CW-FIT used in a preschool setting, by Jolstead et al. (2017), which found a therapeutic change in on-task behavior and rates of teacher praise statements and reprimands. The current study used a withdrawal design to evaluate the effectiveness of CW-FIT in a preschool classroom in both large and small group settings on both on-task student behavior and teacher praise and reprimand behaviors. Using visual data analysis consistent with single-case design, results suggested that the implementation of CW-FIT increased on-task group behavior in both the large and small group settings. Results for rates of teacher’s praise and reprimand statements were, however, variable for the two settings. Limitations are also discussed.

Task interspersal (TI) is a discrete trial training variant in which a number of mastered targets are presented prior to each acquisition target. Previous studies have demonstrated that TI leads to increased learning relative to massed trial training as measured by the number of sessions required for mastery. Recent literature however has suggested that, given the amount of time necessary to conduct additional trials of mastered targets, TI is less efficient when examining overall time spent in instruction. Given its procedural similarity to the high-p sequence, TI may serve to increase the probability of responding for children with high rates of escape, and thus be more efficient for this group of individuals by increasing time on task. Very little research has examined the effects of TI on escape maintained behavior, however. The present study compared TI to massed trial training using a parallel treatments design for two children with high rates of escape behavior during instruction. Initial data indicated that escape maintained behavior decreased during TI; however, escape decreased to low levels across both conditions during subsequent acquisition targets. Implications for future research on TI and escape maintained behavior will be discussed.