Idiosyncratic effects of noncontingent reinforcement on problematic speech

✍ Scribed by James E. Carr; Lisa N. Britton

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 99 KB
• Volume: 14
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1072-0847
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-078x(199901/03)14:1<37::aid-bin28>3.0.co;2-z

✦ Synopsis

Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) was used to treat the attention-maintained problematic speech of an adult male diagnosed with moderate mental retardation. A series of functional assessments was conducted that included informant interviews and a brief experimental analysis. A multiple-baseline design was then used to assess the eects of NCR across two dierent therapists. Although the target behavior was substantially decreased from baseline levels, the reduction was inversely related to the density of the NCR schedule. Within-session analyses were then used to hypothesize putative behavior-change mechanisms responsible for the reduction. The results are discussed in relation to the active components underlying the eects of NCR.