Montrose M. Wolf's research while affiliated with University of Kansas and other places

Publications (47)

Article
Vinte anos atrás, uma nota antropológica descreveu as dimensões vigentes da análise do comportamento aplicada como prescrita e praticada em 1968: ela era, ou deveria se tornar, aplicada, comportamental, analítica, tecnológica, conceitual, eficaz e capaz de resultados apropriadamente generalizados. Uma nota antropológica semelhante, hoje, ainda enco...
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A análise do comportamento individual tem sido sistematicamente estudada e praticada em vários contextos, ao longo de muitos anos. Essa análise resultou em descrições de princípios comportamentais que têm sido aplicados a problemas de comportamento socialmente relevantes nos últimos anos. As pesquisas de análise do comportamento aplicada – direcion...
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Evaluations of community-based programs for delinquents have usually addressed differential outcomes or cost-efficiency, but generally ignored the treatment environments themselves. Yet milieu characteristics are important in assessing treatment quality. The present research examined several environmental dimensions in 11 group home programs. Teach...
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Twenty years ago, an anthropological note described the current dimensions of applied behavior analysis as it was prescribed and practiced in 1968: It was, or ought to become, applied, behavioral, analytic, technological, conceptual, effective, and capable of appropriately generalized outcomes. A similar anthropological note today finds the same di...
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The past 20 years have been productive ones for the field of applied behavior analysis. A brief review of our own efforts during this period reveals that we have accomplished several but not all of our goals for the Teaching‐Family approach. In this context, we note that the setting of realistic and appropriate goals is important for the field and...
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Perhaps the most systematic, and certainly the most long-lived and widely disseminated, application of the behavioral approach with juvenile offenders has been in the context of group homes. Research and development based on behavioral principles and procedures began at the University of Kansas in the late 1960s and continues to the present to esta...
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This experiment evaluated parent and teacher use of reinforcement-based, reductive procedures to treat aggressive pinching in a severely retarded child. A withdrawal and a multiple baseline design were used for the analysis. Substantial and lasting treatment effects were obtained at home and school. The benefits and problems associated with parent...
Article
Cummings's 1985 response to our prior article suggests that the American Psychological Association was justified in not adequately describing or qualifying medical-cost-offset research findings, because the “preponderance of evidence” in the over-all literature is “quite persuasive.” We argue in return that one's willingness to accept a body of evi...
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The American Psychological Association's “Psychology as a Health Care Profession” (1979) contains a review of several studies on the cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy. As we document, that review does not consider viable alternative interpretations or qualify findings in line with the studies' substantial limitations, e.g., their lack of controls...
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The research literature suggests that adolescents placed in residential programs due to their delinquent behavior are at high risk for drug and alcohol use and abuse. Research is rare, however, on the effects of residential delinquency-treatment programs on drug- and alcohol-related behaviors. This study examined the comparative effects of communit...
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Research has suggested that the use of reasons by parents and child care workers plays an important role in educating and otherwise influencing children and adolescents. However, there has been no systematic effort to train parents or child care workers to use reasoning in their interactions with their children and adolescents. The present research...
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When applied behavior analysis training programs designed for individual and small groups are adapted for use with larger systems such as institutions, there is usually not a smooth transition from small to large scale implementation. To date, procedural considerations for minimizing problems involving implementation of behavior analysis training p...
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Full-text available
Juvenile crime is a serious problem for which treatment approach has been found to be reliably effective. This outcome evaluation assessed during and posttreatment effectiveness of Teaching-Family group home treatment programs for juvenile offenders. The evaluation included the original Achievement Place program, which was the prototype for the dev...
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Interactions between the youths and group home parents in 10 group homes were directly observed during a 2-hour session in each home. These observations were compared to questionnaire measures of the youths' self-reported delinquency while in the group home, and their evaluation of the group home program. The results indicated that over the 10 home...
Article
Group home programs for youths were investigated in order to: (a) measure employment longevity in four occupational groups employed in group home treatment settings, (b) report current working conditions and job satisfaction levels, and (c) compare relationships between the group home work environment and employee job satisfaction. Subjects include...
Article
Teaching critical treatment-related skills to behavior change agents is an important task. One such treatment-related skill would seem to be the ability to observe and specifically describe ongoing appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. In this study, the effectiveness of a training "package" in teaching behavior specificity was demonstrated in t...
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Full-text available
The shopping behavior of three elementary school-age boys was analyzed and parent-child interactions assessed for one boy and his mother. Estimates of parent of consumer satisfaction with child shopping behavior were also obtained. The effects of a parent-mediated treatment package on child behavior were assessed using a multiple-baseline design. T...
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Full-text available
This research sought to identify, train, and validate social behaviors preferred by youths to be used by youth-care personnel (called teaching-parents). With training, consistent increases in seven preferred behaviors were observed for the six teaching-parent trainees. These behaviors included offering to help, "getting to the point", giving reason...
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Several events in the last decade have led to the current national trend toward replacing many institutional treatment programs for delinquent and predelinquent youths with community-based t reatment alternatives. The community-based movement received impetus from the report of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Jus...
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Parents of four children manifesting self-injurious behaviors were trained to deal with the behaviors by using overcorrection procedures. A multiple baseline design was used to assess the effects of treatment. The procedures were found to produce zero or near-zero levels of self-injurious behavior for children who received treatment, and treatment...
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Three reliably measured components of conversation-questioning, providing positive feedback, and proportion of time spent talking-were identified and validated as to their social importance. The social validity of the three conversational behaviors was established with five female university students and five female junior-high students. Each was v...
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The use of conversation-related skills by youthful offenders can influence social interactions with adults. These behaviors are also likely to be useful to adolescents after their release from a treatment program (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1972, 5, 343–372). Four girls, aged 13 to 15 yr, residing at Achievement Place for Girls in Lawren...
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The proliferation of group homes and halfway houses for delinquents has increased the need for trained houseparents. The study investigated the effects of instructions, feedback, and modeling as training methods upon selected interpersonal parenting behaviors of six "teaching-parents" in three group homes. The homes were based on the "Teaching-Fami...
Article
Three experiments were conducted (1) to identify the important behaviors of police-youth interaction, (2) to teach four of these behaviors to three court-adjudicated delinquent youths, and (3) to validate the changes through the use of subjective ratings by police officers and a group of citizens from the community. The data suggest that training i...
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Full-text available
Applied researchers increasingly report the use of paraprofessionals to implement key program components. However, despite such apparent advantages as increased availability and lower salaries, problems in maintaining acceptable levels of on‐the‐job performance in these workers have been reported. This study assessed the effects of a supervisory pa...
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One of the goals of many treatment programs for pre-delinquent youths is the development of the skills involved in the democratic decision-making process. At Achievement Place, one aspect of the treatment program is a semi-self-government system whereby the seven pre-delinquent youths can democratically establish many of their own rules of behavior...
Article
A series of experiments was carried out to compare several administrative systems at Achievement Place, a family style behavior modification program for pre-delinquent boys. One aspect of the motivation system at Achievement Place was the token economy in which the youths could earn or lose points that could be exchanged for privileges. Several arr...
Article
The reliability of the boys reporting their own behavior of their peers was measured in two experiments at Achievement Place, a community based, family style, behavior modification program for delinquents based on a token (point) economy. The results of these experiments indicated that; (a) the boys were not "naturally" reliable observers, (b) the...
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Briefly describes the use of time-series, reversal, and multiple base-line designs in experimental research in developmental psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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An attempt was made to eliminate the self-injurious behaviors of four institutionalized, profoundly retarded adolescents. Some of the behaviors studied were: face-slapping, face-banging, hair-pulling, face-scratching, and finger-biting. Three remediative approaches to self-injurious behavior were compared. Elimination of all social consequences of...
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Pre-delinquent peers in Achievement Place (a community based family style rehabilitation program based on a token economy) were given points (token reinforcement) to modify the articulation errors of two boys. In Experiment I, using a multiple baseline experimental design, error words involving the /l/, /r/, /th/, and /ting/ sounds were successfull...
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The "pre-delinquent" behaviors of six boys at Achievement Place, a community based family style behavior modification center for delinquents, were modified using token (points) reinforcement procedures. In Exp. I, point losses contingent on each minute late were effective in producing promptness at the evening meal. During the reversal phase, threa...
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Demonstrated that the timer-game is a practical and effective procedure for managing out-of-seat behavior of elementary school children in a remedial classroom. The game allowed the Ss (N=16) to earn token reinforcement by being in their seats whenever the bell of a kitchen timer rang. The bell rang once every 20 min. In a 2nd experiment, peer rein...
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In Exp. I, five pre-delinquents from Achievement Place attended a special summer school math class where study behavior and rule violations were measured daily for each boy. The boys were required to take a "report card" for the teacher to mark. The teacher simply marked yes or no whether a boy had "studied the whole period" and "obeyed the class r...
Article
Out-of-seat and talking-out behaviors were studied in a regular fourth-grade class that included several “problem children”. After baseline rates of the inappropriate behaviors were obtained, the class was divided into two teams “to play a game”. Each out-of-seat and talking-out response by an individual child resulted in a mark being placed on the...
Article
A 16-yr-old retarded male, diagnosed organically blind and treated by those around him as a blind person, was given practice in discriminating visual stimuli. After training, he responded with significantly better than chance accuracy in a choice situation in which stimuli were as small as 18 pt Futura Medium type. In addition, he was trained to lo...
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Five female school dropouts were “hired” to complete remedial workbook assignments. They were paid (via a token system) for the items that they worked correctly. Significant gains were observed in achievement test scores during the 2-month program. Experimental analyses with individual students showed the token reinforcement system to function as s...
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This report describes results of the first year of an after-school, remedial education program for low-achieving 5th and 6th grade children in an urban poverty area. The remedial program incorporated standard instructional materials, mastery of which was supported by token reinforcement. Experimental analyses carried out with individual students sh...
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The modification of academic behaviors of children in a learning disabilities class was undertaken by arranging for events such as amount of teacher attention, recess, and quality of weekly grade reports to be consequences for academic progress. As academic behaviors achieved with these consequences stabilized at less than an optimal level, the chi...
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This paper is a summary of research by the authors in the development of speech in echolalic children. The procedures are based on operant behavior-modification techniques such as: (1) shaping and imitation training for the development of speech ; (2) fading in of new stimuli and fading out of verbal prompts to transfer the speech from imitative co...
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The modification of an autistic boy's behavior in a nursery school setting is described. The procedures used to deal with his problem behavior such as tantrums, pinching and toilet training are discussed.
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An account is given of the treatment of a pre-school child who had serious behavioural and physical handicaps. In a sense this is a study involving both psychotherapy and rehabilitation. The treatment consisted of applying laboratory-developed techniques through the attendants and the parents over a seven-month period.
Article
Analysen av individuell atferd er vitenskapelig demonstrasjonsomrÂde hvor vi har en rimelig grad av forstÂelse (Skinner, 1953), omfattende beskrivelse (Sidman, 1960) og en utbredt praksis (Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1957 - ). Analysen har utviklet seg innenfor mange omrÂder over mange Âr. PÂ tross av variasjoner nÂr det gjeld...

Citations

... A partir desses dados, a comunidade, especialmente a parte dela que trabalha em periódicos da área, poderá avaliar mais claramente a questão e planejar estratégias com base em dados. Em debate sobre o quanto políticas editoriais poderiam dificultar a descrição minuciosa dos procedimentos de estudos aplicados, Baer et al. (1987Baer et al. ( /2023 ...
... This may have been the case because of financial pressures, lack of training/acknowledgement of the need for training, and/or poor supervision. There are others who may not have focused sufficiently on client-centered and culturally sensitive socially important behavior that should be the focus of interventions in accordance with the original definition of ABA (Baer, 2004;Baer et al., 1968Baer et al., , 1987Cooper et al., 2020). As with other professions, in behavior analysis professional regulation and strict ethical guidelines are in place (BACB, 2023; UK Society for Behaviour Analysis (UK-SBA), 2023). ...
... There is abundant evidence that social contingencies applied by staff and/or parents can modify selected problem behaviors of children. This has been shown with preschool children (e.g., Baer and Wolf, 1968;Harris, Wolf, and Baer, 1964), school children (e.g., Hall, Lund, and Jackson, 1968;McAllister, Stachowiak, Baer, and Conderman, 1969), children at home (e.g., Hawkins, Peterson, Schweid, and Bijou, 1966;Herbert and Baer, 1972), and in clinical groups with brain injury, emotional disturbance, or retardation (e.g., Hall and Broden, 1967;Zimmerman and Zimmerman, 1962). The behaviors modified have ranged through poor 'This research was conducted during the course of study and sabbatical leaves by the first and third authors at the University of Western Australia, Nedlands. ...
... The most well-known example is the application of behavior analysis to autism, which is today's best empirically based treatment for the disorder (see Harris & Weiss, 2007;Maurice, Green, & Luce, 1996). An important example of this is the widespread application and national and international dissemination of the Teaching Family Model (Braukmann & Wolf, 1987;Wolf, 1997;see Powell, Fixsen, Dunlap, Smith, & Fox, 2007). This model was originally designed to create therapeutic living environments for adjudicated youth so that they could acquire the education and training that would help them lead productive lives outside the judicial system. ...
... The learning that occurred led to a redefinition of the Teaching-Family Model and improved methods for training staff (Wolf, Kirigin, Fixsen, Blase, & Braukmann, 1995). In addition, the process of comparing and contrasting the successful prototype program and the failed replication attempt led to the development of a way to assess fidelity of the use of the comprehensive and complex treatment program (Bedlington, Braukmann, Ramp, & Wolf, 1988;Braukmann et al., 1975). Thus, the process of attempting to replicate the successful prototype produced a deeper and more complete understanding of the intervention, improved methods for preparing staff, and a way to assess the presence and strength (fidelity) of the intervention in practice. ...
... The two variations of punishment include positive punishment, in which an aversive stimulus is presented following the behavior, or negative punishment, in which a reinforcing stimulus is removed following the behavior (Miltenberger 2016 ). Various forms of punishment have been used to reduce body-focused repetitive behaviors in individuals with IDD (e.g., Altman et al. 1978 ;Barmann and Vitali 1982 ;Barrett and Shapiro 1980 ;Corte et al. 1971 ;Gross et al. 1982 ). ...
... Moreover, a variety of interventions targeting classroom structure have emerged. Programs such as the Good Behavior Game (Barrish et al., 1969), Classroom Organization and Management Program (Evertson et al., 1983), Consistency Management & Cooperative Discipline (CMCD) program (Freiberg et al., 2009), and Incredible Years Teacher Classroom Management (Reinke et al., 2014) combine many of the strategies that emerged as effective in correlational research into teacher training programs. Evidence suggests that many of these interventions are effective for supporting students' engagement and achievement, though inconsistent results have sometimes emerged. ...
... The authors examined whether community-based clinicians working in rural, underserved geographic regions could apply an evidence-based trauma treatment with high fidelity through participation in a training and implementation LC. TF-CBT, the selected intervention, has [60] 2. EBT format and training to fidelity can be replicated with multiple agencies [4,5,61,62] 3. Assessment of "readiness" for implementation: Appropriate selection of agencies based on implementation capacity [12,13,61] Preparation Phase 4. Within selected agencies, selection of appropriate staff (defined team composition, including implementation champions) [13,63] 5. Attention to implementation process as part of variance of treatment outcomes [6-8, 10, 18, 64] 6. Practitioner attitudes to EBTs [4,65] 7. Challenges to training within service delivery structure [66][67][68] 8. Organizational readiness, culture, & processes addressed in preparedness & prework [16,69] 9. Data monitoring capacity at practitioner & agency level [70] 10. Use of technology to integrate practice into care [71] Implementation Phase 11. ...
... Key treatment components used by the Teaching Parents are teaching appropriate alternative behavior as well as initializing motivation systems, self-government systems, and counseling (Phillips et al., 1972). Individualized treatment goals for youths include a variety of self-care skills, social skills, living with family, dealing with authority, and academic content and behavior at school (Bailey, Wolf, & Phillips, 1970;Eitzen, 1974;Fixsen, Phillips, & Wolf, 1973;Phillips, 1968;Phillips, Phillips, Fixsen, & Wolf, 1971;Werner et al., 1975). After four years of research and development the first few goals were being met at Achievement Place, the prototype group home treatment program. ...
... Although these studies provided a foundation for evaluation of interview skills, single subject designs might be more effective for evaluating the effect of the intervention on individual performance (Gillen & Heimberg, 1980). Braukmann et al. (1974) used behavioral skills training (BST) to increase interview skills for young boys referred by a juvenile court. Results indicated BST was effective for increasing appropriate interview behaviors (e.g., posture, answers) for two boys. ...