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Operant and Classical Conditioning
Abstract
This chapter is the first of two that outlines behavioral treatment strategies for children. The behavioral approach to treating childhood problems has been characterized by some researchers as a very simplistic type of therapy (i.e., the focus is only on environmental or situational variables). Other researchers characterize the approach as quite complex (i.e., the focus encompasses not only environmental, person, and cognitive variables but also the interaction among the variables). However, a fairly clear consensus has been obtained on how the behavioral approach is different from other psychological theories of personality. Kazdin (1984) cogently summarized these differences:
The behavioral approach departs from the traditional conception of behavior by rejecting inferred motives, hypothesized needs, impulses, and drives, which supposedly explain behavior. Rather, emphasis is placed upon environmental, situational, and social determinants that influence behavior. Other events within the individual, including various cognitive processes, often serve as the focus of behavioral treatment. However, these processes are specified as measurable events, and their connection to overt behavior can be evaluated empirically rather than only presumed. (pp. 13–14).
... However, conversations with mental health professionals indicated that they preferred to use the principles of operant conditioning such as positive or negative reinforcement. 67 The intervention is usually conducted in a group setting which promises a safe and natural environment for open discussions of the problems faced and the possible solutions. 68 Parents were trained in reinforcement schedules for effective implementation of the intervention. ...
Background: Parental schizophrenia is a major public health concern that affects both the individual and the family, particularly children. Children with parents diagnosed with schizophrenia tend to experience negative impacts that can hinder their development. This complex condition demands effective therapeutic interventions aimed at improving the mental health and well-being of both the individual and the family.
Material and Methods: This study aimed to understand possible therapeutic interventions used to address the clinical issues of children with parental schizophrenia. An interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) was employed to explore the therapeutic approaches taken by mental health professionals (MHPs) in addressing children whose parents are diagnosed with schizophrenia. A sample of 43 participants, including psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers, was interviewed. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed for common themes.
Results: The findings revealed common themes in interventions aimed at enhancing neurocognitive function and improving behavior through therapy, skills training, and counseling. MHPs also targeted the family through education and positive parenting strategies. The findings emphasized the importance of a comprehensive approach addressing both individual and family aspects.
Conclusion: MHPs recognized the need for a holistic approach to improve the mental health and well-being of both the individual and the family. This study highlighted the importance of addressing the impact of parental schizophrenia on children and the need for effective therapeutic interventions aimed at improving the mental health and well-being of both the individual and the family.
Reviews the use of punishment procedures to suppress seriously disruptive behavior. Although differential reinforcement of behaviors incompatible with disruptive behavior is attractive to many because it does not involve aversive procedures, it has shown mixed results and may be effective only when combined with other procedures. Contingent removal of reinforcement (timeout) has been found moderately effective for dealing with self-stimulation and aggression but is of more limited value in treating severe self-injury. Overcorrection also has a beneficial effect on a variety of serious management problems. It is suggested that although electric shock has been the focus of considerable debate, it may have value under certain conditions. Research on generalization, maintenance, and side effects of these procedures is reviewed, and ethical issues are examined. (188 ref)
Token economies have been applied in a wide range of settings. While there are several advantages to the use of this procedure, there are obstacles that may impede its implementation and therapeutic efficacy. These include: staff training, client resistance, circumvention of the contingencies, and non-responsiveness of subjects. Studies employing token programs with psychiatric patients, retardates, children in classroom settings, delinquents, and autistic children are reviewed. Although token economies are successful while in operation, the issue of generalization of behavior gains or resistance to extinction has not been given careful consideration. Inasmuch as generalization is perhaps the most crucial issue, several procedures are presented that are designed to facilitate maintenance of performance when reinforcement is withdrawn. Methodological suggestions for investigations on token reinforcement in applied settings are presented.
Performed 5 experiments with 232 4-yr-olds to test the hypothesis that the evaluations and affective responses which accompany ongoing behavior may operate as reinforcers and punishers, thus exercising control over the persistence of those behaviors. Results show that (a) children persisted longer when they labeled work at a motor task as fun rather than no fun, easy rather than difficult, or when they expressed pride in their ongoing work as opposed to being self-critical; (b) when children contingently reminded themselves of pleasant events unrelated to the task itself, they persisted longer than when they reminded themselves of unpleasant events; and (c) when children labeled a problem-solving task as easy, they persisted longer when they rendered this evaluation with neutral or negative affective intonation ("disparagement"), but under positive intonation ("enthusiasm"), children persisted longer when they contingently labeled the task as difficult. Results are discussed in terms of the effectiveness of self-evaluation and affective-responses for regulating ongoing behavior and the degree to which the contingency of such responses is truly necessary for their effectiveness. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two single-subject experiments were conducted with students in special preschool classes. In Experiment I, the subject's disruptive, appropriate, and inappropriate play behaviors were measured as a function of three independent variables: reinforcement, a typical timeout procedure, and regularly paced teacher instructions. In an ABA reversal within a multiple baseline across two teachers, all three independent variables comprised the A conditions and procedural timeout was omitted in B. Experiment II examined a second subject's appropriate and inappropriate eating as a function of the same three variables. Two teachers conducted baseline and paced instruction-plus-reinforcement conditions in multiple baseline across teachers. Subsequently, one teacher performed a series of reversals and replications with various combinations of a typical timeout procedure and reinforcement mixed with paced instructions. The results of both experiments suggest that timeout did not produce response decrement in a punishment paradigm, but rather produced response increment in a negative reinforcement paradigm. These results prevailed, even though a reinforcer was operating in the environment before introducing timeout. Paced instructions (delivering instructions to the child at a set pace regardless of the child's behavior) appears to be an alternative when timeout is not effective and, in conjunction with reinforcement, was demonstrated to reduce inappropriate behavior to near zero.
Incontinence is a major unsolved problem in the institutional care of the profoundly retarded. A reinforcement and social analysis of incontinence was used to develop a procedure that would rapidly toilet train retardates and motivate them to remain continent during the day in their ward setting. Nine profoundly retarded adults were given intensive training (median of four days per patient), the distinctive features of which were artificially increasing the frequency of urinations, positive reinforcement of correct toileting but a delay for "accidents", use of new automatic apparatus for signalling elimination, shaping of independent toileting, cleanliness training, and staff reinforcement procedures. Incontinence was reduced immediately by about 90% and eventually decreased to near-zero. These results indicate the present procedure is an effective, rapid, enduring, and administratively feasible solution to the problem of incontinence of the institutionalized retarded.
Aggressive behavior by mentally retarded persons is a cause for concern for all helping professionals. One reason is that aggressive behavior may endanger the safety of the client himself, other mentally retarded clients, and/or the staff who deal directly with the clientele. Obviously, behavior such as attacking other clients or throwing furniture can cause serious safety hazards. A second reason is that this behavior can and does demand considerable staff attention, and thus subtracts from the total time that the staff can devote to more habilitative procedures (e.g., job training, self-care, etc.). It is precisely for these reasons that many techniques have been developed to help reduce aggressive responding in mentally retarded clients.
Research on overcorrection was analyzed along a number of dimensions. Two types of overcorrection have been described — restitutional overcorrection and positive-practice overcorrection (Foxx & Azrin, 1972). In restitutional overcorrection an individual who disrupts the environment must restore, and then improve, the environment over its previous state. In positive-practice overcorrection, an offending individual must repeatedly perform an appropriate behavior. The literature indicates that overcorrection has been effective with a wide variety of behaviors, but that its effectiveness compared with alternative procedures is unclear. An adequate assessment of the side effects of overcorrection has been hampered by a lack of objective data and a failure to specify, in advance, which behaviors are of interest. Investigations of various parameters of overcorrection indicate that topographical similarity between an offense and the restitutional procedure is unnecessary, that the duration of time that the process must be administered is unclear, and that a more precise specification of the components of overcorrection is necessary. Finally, it is concluded that Foxx and Azrin have not been sufficiently explicit in relating overcorrection to the punishment process.
Two severely retarded boys, each a member of a different play group, experienced three regimes of reinforcement from adults [contingent, noncontingent, and mixed (contingent and noncontingent)]. The agent of contingent reinforcement acquired stimulus control of the subjects' behavior; the noncontingent agent did not. The agent of the mixed schedule of reinforcement did not gain control, but aspects of his behavior came to function as cues. The mixed adult's withholding reinforcement in the absence of the target behavior (cooperative play) evoked cooperative play, whereas his presenting free reinforcement resulted in the subjects' remaining in their inactive, baseline positions.
The effect of adult social reinforcement on the cooperative play of a five-year old girl in a preschool setting was assessed under two conditions: (1) presented randomly throughout the school day, and (2) presented contingent on cooperative play. Only in the latter condition was a significant change in cooperative play observed.
Traditionally, discrimination has been understood as an active process, and a technology of its procedures has been developed and practiced extensively. Generalization, by contrast, has been considered the natural result of failing to practice a discrimination technology adequately, and thus has remained a passive concept almost devoid of a technology. But, generalization is equally deserving of an active conceptualization and technology. This review summarizes the structure of the generalization literature and its implicit embryonic technology, categorizing studies designed to assess or program generalization according to nine general headings: Train and Hope; Sequential Modification; Introduce to Natural Maintaining Contingencies; Train Sufficient Exemplars; Train Loosely; Use Indiscriminable Contingencies; Program Common Stimuli; Mediate Generalization; and Train “To Generalize”.
No method is in general usage and of demonstrated effectiveness in eliminating the self-stimulatory behaviors of retardates and autistics. An Overcorrection rationale was used to develop such a method. The Overcorrection procedures consisted of a period of practice in the correct mode of the behavior contingent upon self-stimulatory behavior. The procedures were applied in a behavioral day-care program to three retarded children and one autistic child who exhibited object-mouthing, hand-mouthing, head-weaving and hand-clapping. For some behaviors, comparisons were made between the Overcorrection procedure and several alternative procedures, such as physical punishment by a slap, reinforcement for nonself-stimulatory behavior, a distasteful solution painted on the hand of a hand-mouther, and free reinforcement. The Overcorrection procedures eliminated the self-stimulatory behaviors of all four children in tutorial sessions and during the entire school day and were more effective than the alternative procedures in eliminating self-stimulation. The Overcorrection procedures appear to be rapid, enduring, and effective methods of eliminating self-stimulatory behavior.
This article presents a survey of the child behavior therapy literature, drawing upon reviews and outcome studies published in the past five years. A number of criticisms are made. Child behavior therapy research needs to acquire a greater developmental focus, conduct more complex functional analyses, place greater emphasis on assessment and description of subjects, and employ more consistent use of adequate designs and procedures. Recent work, nonetheless, reflects greater methodological and conceptual sophistication than was found in earlier reviews.
Little is known about the processes by which achievement standards affect children's achievement strivings and actual task mastery. There is little information, for example, concerning the capability of self-dispensed task evaluation (e. g., pride, self-criticism) to control the acquisition of new behavior patterns. 2 studies were conducted to clarify the role of different minimum-performance standards for contingent tangible reinforcement or self-dispensed evaluative reinforcement (in the absence of tangible rewards) in determining the rate of learning. Preschool children were presented with a discrimination learning task, and their performance on each trial had to meet low (few correct), medium, or high (all correct) standards to be rewarded. In an accelerating-standard condition their performance had to surpass that on the previous trial. In 1 experiment rewards were externally dispensed tokens, while in the second, children self-administered achievement evaluations. In both studies, learning was significantly more rapid in high and accelerating standards. In addition, self-dispensed achievement evaluations produced such rapid mastery that by the end of the experiment effects due to different standards had vanished. The results are discussed in terms of incentive and differential reinforcement processes as determinants of the observed effects due to differing achievement standards and in terms of the reinforcing power of achievement evaluations.
Designed primarily for elementary and secondary school teachers, the book presents one approach to the systematic and effective use of positive reinforcement to motivate better learning in normal or disturbed children. In Part 1, describing how contingency contracting works, each chapter contains a self-diagnostic pretest, narrative summary and intermediate test, and then a sequence of frames (statement-and-question steps), followed by a posttest. Part 2 concerns the application of contingency contracting in the classroom, and covers the preparation of materials, classroom organization, class management, and correcting contract malfunctions. Chapters in this part are also programed, with questions following expository paragraphs and chapter posttests. (KW)
defining behavioral assessment
common assessment purposes
children's functioning and its determinants
dimensions of child and family behavior assessment / age and sex
methods of assessment
formal testing of children (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Reinforcer item selections of two inmate groups (new, inmates incarcerated less than 3 months; old, inmates incarcerated more than 6 months) were determined with a 10-item questionnaire. Using the same questionnaire, four predictor groups (prison administrators, college students, mental health workers with penal experience, and mental health workers without penal experience) were asked to indicate the order in which they thought the prisoners would select the reinforcers. There were marked similarities in the reinforcer choices of new and old prison inmates. Three major clusters evolved from the prisoner selections of the 10 reinforcer items reflecting a preference for (1) early release from prison, (2) contact with the “free world” while incarcerated, and (3) in-prison privileges in the order listed. Of the four predictor groups, prison administrators were the most accurate in predicting the rank order in which prisoners selected the reinforcers. Education and training did not seem to help the mental health workers make more accurate predictions than either the students or prison administrators. Moreover, work experience in a penal setting did not significantly improve the accuracy of prediction of mental health professionals. Implications for mental health workers engaged in consulting to prison behavioral programs are discussed.
To provide organization to the field of behavioral assessment, a threedimensional system for classifying behavioral measures is proposed that combines contents (cognitive, physiological, motor), methods (interviews, self-reports, ratings by others, self-observation, direct observation), and universes of generalizability (scorer, item, time, setting, method, dimension). Various theoretic, heuristic, and practical uses of the system are described.
Emotionally disturbed children frequently behave in a disruptive manner in the classroom. The Positive Practice principle was evaluated as a method of eliminating such disruptions by requiring the child after a disruptive episode to engage in the positive action of asking for permission to speak out or to leave his seat. The result was that disruptive actions decreased by 95% when the practice requirement was delayed and by 98% when it was immediate. By comparison, disruptive actions were at a high level during a reminder and disapproval procedure and the disruptions were reduced by only 60% by a loss-of-recess penalty procedure. The principal advantage of the Positive Practice procedure over the alternative methods was its reeducative value as well as its greater effectiveness.
The covert conditioning procedure has been successfully employed to modify a wide range of behaviors. There is both anecdotal and experimental evidence that cognitive strategies can modify pain responses. The rationale and description of the application of covert conditioning to modify pain responses are given. A case is presented to illustrate how covert conditioning can be combined with other procedures to modify pain. Cautions and implications of the procedures are discussed.
Although physical restraint is a widely used and possibly hazardous form of treatment, few guidelines for its use appear in the recent psychiatric literature. An approach is described in which physical restraint is considered to be a specific therapeutic technique with definable indications, "dosages", contra-indications, and side effects. A method of initiating and terminating this treatment modality is presented and the indications for its use are discussed. These include the presence of violent behavior during a psychotic illness; the presence of agitation or confusion when the use of antipsychotic medication is limited by physical illness; the presence of severe psychotic symptoms in conjunction with severely regressed, socially aversive behavior; the need to reduce excessive external stimuli; and the request for restraint by the patient. Possible side effects and contra-indications are also discussed and criteria for evaluating the duration and effectiveness of the treatment are proposed.
Scavenging behavior such as pica (ingesting non-nutritive substances) and coprophagy (ingesting fecal matter) represents a serious health hazard in the care of the institutionalized retarded. The Overcorrection rationale was used to develop procedures for eliminating scavenging. The procedures were applied to 4 profoundly retarded adults who rumaged for and ate: paper, trash, garbage, cigarette butts, bits of cloth and feces. The 3 residents who habitually ate feces were chronically infested with intestinal parasites (Trichuris trichiura). The procedures emphasized correction of the scavenging act. as well as practice in alternative appropriate behavior in the situations in which scavenging normally occurred. The Overcorrection procedures reduced the scavenging of all 4 retardates to a near zero level within 1 week where it remained for the duration of the study. The results of biweekly stool specimens showed that all three coprophagic residents were free of parasites during the Overcorrection condition. The Overcorrection procedures were rapid, easily implemented, enduring and effective methods of reducing pica and coprophagic behavior.
Observation of the use of seclusion rooms on a university hospital psychiatric inpatient floor over a period of one year indicates that seclusion is an effective device for the control of the destructive behavior of a few schizophrenic, hypomanic, organically-impaired, and depressed patients. During this period, 4% of the patients admitted were secluded. Fourteen of 15 secluded patients were discharged to their homes in eight weeks or less. Yet, the possibility remains that in a properly designed setting, with an adequately trained staff, more patients could be helped without recourse to seclusion. Further investigation is needed into means of providing help for the extremely agitated and violent patient who does not immediately respond to drugs or current methods of psychological intervention.
Current methods of penalizing aggressive and disruptive behaviors have elements of retribution that discourage general usage. A procedure was developed that provided disruptive offenders with re-education, removal of the reinforcement for the offense, time-out from general positive reinforcement, and an effort requirement. The offender was required by instructions or physical guidance to overcorrect the general psychological and physical disturbance created by the offense. The procedure was applied to one brain-damaged and two retarded patients, who displayed one or more of the following types of behavior: physical assault, property destruction, tantrums, continuous screaming, and biting, all of which had resisted other treatments such as time-out, punishment and social disapproval. The procedure reduced the disturbed behaviors of all patients to a near-zero level within one or two weeks and maintained this therapeutic effect with minimal staff attention. This method appears to be a rapid and effective treatment procedure for disruptive behavior and emphasizes the individual's responsibility for his actions.
IN THE course of psychotherapy, a patient tells of many concerns and evidences a broad repertoire of behaviors. One of the therapist's main tasks is to link the various details into a meaningful pattern so that his responses to the patient can have a rational basis. A coherent conceptual framework, whether derived from psychoanalysis or some other personality theory, is of immense help because it attunes one to the play of key dynamic forces, such as hostile dependency or competitive guilt. These serve to clarify and connect events which otherwise might seem obscure and unrelated.
The therapist must also appropriately time his responses. He must have some sense of which clue to respond to now and which to revisit later. For example, the experienced therapist, rather than immediately interpret hostility, might first call attention to his patient's exaggerated politeness and only later approach the underlying affect.
Reciprocal inhibition is a process of relearning whereby in the presence of a stimulus a non-anxiety-producing response is
continually repeated until it extinguishes the old, undesirable response. A variety of the techniques based on reciprocal
inhibition, such as systematic desensitization, avoidance conditioning, and the use of assertion, are described in detail.
Behavior therapy techniques evaluated on the basis of their clinical efficacy are found to have striking success over traditional
psychoanalytic methods. Currently, more comparative studies are required which will validate the merit of behavior therapy
in the psychotherapeutic field while experimental research should continue to refine the techniques.
Parents are teachers
- W C Becker
Behavior modification: Punishment
- T M Dilorenzo
- T H Ollendick
Behavior modification: An introductory textbook
- A S Bellack
- M Hersen
Models of assessment and treatment in child behavior therapy
- P H Bornstein
- R A Van Den Pol
Methods of assessment II: Standardized and projective tests
- T M Dilorenzo
Punishment Operant behavior: Areas of research and application
- N H Azrin
- W C Holz
Behavioral diagnosis
- F H Kanfer
- G Saslow
Punishment and its alternatives: A new perspective for behavior modification
- J L Matson
- T M Dilorenzo
A brief overview of multimodal therapy
- A A Lazarus
Multimodal clinical assessment
- W R Nay
Historical perspectives in behavioral assessment
- M Hersen