The effects of pairing non-preferred staff with preferred stimuli on increasing the reinforcing value of non-preferred staff attention.

This two-part study conducted preference assessments for staff members in three adults with intellectual disabilities and then paired attention from non-preferred staff with preferred stimuli. All three participants reliably identified preferred and non-preferred staff in both verbal and pictorial preference assessments, they emitted a higher rate responses during progressive ratio schedules for attention from preferred than from non-preferred staff and emitted more approach responses to preferred than non-preferred staff. When attention from non-preferred staff was paired with preferred stimuli, break points and the rate of approaches to non-preferred staff systematically increased as a function of stimulus pairings. The paper discusses the implications of preparing staff to work with people with intellectual disabilities.

The effects of in-service training alone and in-service training with feedback on data collection accuracy for direct-care staff working with individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Three residential staff aged 22-38 years participated in this study which measured the accuracy of their data collection, following instruction, in-service, and in-service plus feedback. The experimenter trained them to collect data on targeted maladaptive behavior of one consumer at one time of the day. Following the in-service and the in-service plus feedback trainings, the experimenters assessed whether data collection accuracy increased for that consumer at that time and whether these improved data collection skills generalized to the other consumers and different times. The experimenter used a multiple-baseline-across-participants design to demonstrate experimental control. All three staff improved their data-collection-accuracy from instruction to in-service, and then from in-service to in-service plus feedback. Additionally, improved data collection generalized to two different consumers and two separate time periods. Future research should extend these findings of this study to measuring the effects of more accurate data collection on other functional dependent variables such as accuracy of staff implementation of behavior plans, frequency of maladaptive behavior and amount of prescribed psychotropic medications.

Reinforcing efficacy of interactions with preferred and nonpreferred staff under progressive-ratio schedules.

Research has not systematically assessed and validated preferences for staff in adults with developmental disabilities. Three adults with developmental disabilities (aged 32 to 43 years) identified preferred and nonpreferred staff using verbal and pictorial preference assessments. During break-point analyses with progressive-ratio schedules, all 3 had higher break points when working for positive social interaction with their preferred staff mamber than with their nonpreferred staff member.

The effects of errorless learning and backward chaining on the acquisition of Internet skills in adults with developmental disabilities.

An important area in the learning and development of individuals with disabilities is the acquisition of independent, age-appropriate leisure skills. Three adults with autism and mental retardation were taught to access specific Internet sites using backward chaining and most-to-least intrusive prompting. The number of independent steps completed in the task analysis increased following training.