The Effects of Reinforcement Magnitude on Unprompted Intraverbal Responses to Mands for Personal Information in Adolescents with Disabilities
Abstract
The purpose of the current study was to compare the effects of
reinforcement magnitude plus praise on correct, unprompted responding during
Discrete Trial Training (DTT) among adolescents with an intellectual disability.
Participants were teenaged individuals with an intellectual disability who are able
to engage in vocal-verbal responding and can read independently. An alternating
treatments design with generalization probes to novel environments and people
(using confederates within the research lab) was used to evaluate intervention
effects. During baseline, participants were asked each intraverbal question but were
not given any prompting or feedback. During treatment, edible items were
delivered contingent upon correct, unprompted responses to mands for personal
information. In the high-magnitude condition, a double portion of a large-sized
preferred edible was delivered. In the low-magnitude condition, a single portion of
a miniature-sized preferred edible item was delivered. A praise only condition was
also utilized to compare the efficacy of social praise against edible reinforcers plus praise. Results showed that two out of three participants acquired the targets most
quickly in the high-magnitude condition.