Behavioral assessment procedures were used to determine the maintaining conditions of self-injury exhibited by 2 children with severe multiple handicaps. For both children, negative reinforcement (escape from grooming activities) was determined to be the maintaining reinforcer for self-injury (hand/arm biting) within an alternating treatments design. The treatment packages involved the use of negative reinforcement (brief escape from grooming activities) contingent upon a behavior that was incompatible with self-injury (reaching and pressing a microswitch that activated a pre-recorded message of "stop"). Treatment was evaluated with a reversal design for 1 child and with a multiple baseline across grooming activities for the 2nd child. The treatment led to a marked decrease in self-injury for both children. At follow-up, high rates of self-injury were reported for the 1st child, but low rates of self-injury and an increase in task-related appropriate behavior were observed for the 2nd child.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1286261PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1990.23-459DOI Listing

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

negative reinforcement
12
grooming activities
12
reinforcement escape
8
escape grooming
8
2nd child
8
rates self-injury
8
self-injury
6
treatment
4
reinforcement treatment
4
treatment self-injurious
4

Similar Publications

The inferior colliculus (IC) has traditionally been regarded as an important relay in the auditory pathway, primarily involved in relaying auditory information from the brainstem to the thalamus. However, this study uncovers the multifaceted role of the IC in bridging auditory processing, sensory prediction, and reward prediction. Through extracellular recordings in monkeys engaged in a sound duration-based deviation detection task, we observed a 'climbing effect' in neuronal firing rates, indicative of an enhanced response over sound sequences linked to sensory prediction rather than reward anticipation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Recreational use of nitrous oxide (NO) has risen dramatically over the past decades. This study aimed to examine its rewarding effect and the underlying mechanisms. The exposure of mice to a subanesthetic concentration (20%) of NO for 30 min for 4 consecutive days paired with NO in the morning and paired with the air in the afternoon produced apparent rewarding behavior in the conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Exploring when to exploit: the cognitive underpinnings of foraging-type decisions in relation to psychopathy.

Transl Psychiatry

January 2025

Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behavior, Thomas van Aquinostraat 4, 6525 GD, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Impairments in reinforcement learning (RL) might underlie the tendency of individuals with elevated psychopathic traits to behave exploitatively, as they fail to learn from their mistakes. Most studies on the topic have focused on binary choices, while everyday functioning requires us to learn the value of multiple options. In this study, we evaluated the cognitive correlates of naturalistic foraging-type decision-making and their electrophysiological signatures in a community sample (n = 108) with varying degrees of psychopathic traits.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

It has been proposed that social groups are maintained both by reward resulting from positive social interactions and by the reduction of a negative state that would otherwise be caused by social separation. European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, develop strong conditioned place preferences for places associated with the production of song in flocks outside the breeding season (gregarious song) and singers are motivated to rejoin the flock following removal. This indicates that the act of singing in flocks is associated with a positive affective state and raises the possibility that reward induced by song in flocks may play a role in flock maintenance.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!