Choosing staff members reduces time in mechanical restraint due to self-injurious behaviour and requesting restraint.

Background: Using mechanical restraints to protect a person who engaged in dangerous self-injury was decreased by manipulation of an establishing operation involving the client choosing the staff person who would work with her.

Materials And Methods: The client was a 28-year-old woman diagnosed with autism, bipolar disorder, static cerebral encephalopathy, moderate intellectual disabilities, hypotonia and musculoskeletal deformities. She had a history of biting herself and further bites could produce irreversible nerve damage.

Choice of timeout from fixed-time schedules: Comparison of two procedures.

Four rats obtained food on fixed-time (FT) 1-, 4-, and 16-min schedules. During FT schedules, a lever press produced a timeout period during which food could not be delivered. When timeout was in effect, a lever press ended the timeout period and reinstated the FT schedule.

Schedule-induced timeout: Effects of timeout-contingent delayed reinforcement.

Rats' lever pressing turned off stimuli associated with various response-independent fixed-time schedules of food delivery and produced a timeout period during which food delivery could not occur. A lever press during timeout turned on the schedule-associated stimuli and reinstated the fixed-time schedule. Every response that produced timeout ended the timing of fixed time intervals; timeout terminating responses started the timing of fixed-time schedules over again.

Timeout induced by differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedules.

Three rats pressed a lever for food on differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate (DRL) schedules ranging from 16 s to 96 s. During DRL performance, a response to a second lever turned off chamber illumination and produced a timeout period during which food could not be obtained. During timeout periods, a response to the second lever reinstated the DRL schedule and associated chamber illumination.

Choice of timeout during response-independent food schedules.

Rats' lever pressing terminated visual or auditory stimuli associated with fixed-time or variable-time schedules of food delivery and produced a timeout period during which food delivery could not occur. Lever pressing during a timeout period reinstated the food-associated stimuli and again permitted food delivery according to the fixed-time or variable-time schedules. The mean interfood interval ranged from 1 minute to 16 minutes (variable-time schedules) or 32 minutes (fixed-time schedules); the timer controlling schedule intervals did not stop during timeout periods.