Evaluation of an indirect assessment for identifying tasks for functional analysis.

Although a demand analysis is helpful for identifying potential establishing operations for the functional analysis (FA) demand condition, it may not always be practical due to time constraints. A potential alternative is the Negative Reinforcement Rating Scale (NRRS), an indirect assessment tool that may serve as a time efficient alternative to a demand analysis. The experimenter assessed the reliability and validity of the NRRS for 5 individuals with autism spectrum disorder who exhibited problem behavior.

Producing mands in concurrent operant environments.

This study examined strategies designed to increase the rate of targeted, low-probability mands in a concurrent operant environment. We examined the effects of schedule manipulations, prompt manipulations, motivating operation manipulations, and combined behavioral process manipulations. Increases in target mands were produced for all 8 participants.

A comparison of preference-assessment methods.

In Study 1, we evaluated preference stability across 4 preference-assessment methods for 6 individuals, 5 of whom had autism spectrum disorder and 1 of whom had traumatic brain injury. We also measured participants' problem behavior as a corollary measure during all assessment methods. The highest mean correlation coefficients and Kendall rank coefficients of concordance across administrations were observed for the paired-stimulus and multiple-stimulus-without-replacement methods.

Evaluation of assessment methods for identifying social reinforcers.

Although researchers have evaluated assessment methods for identifying preferred tangible and edible items for children with developmental disabilities, few have evaluated assessment methods for identifying preferred topographies of attention. In the current study, indirect and direct assessments were conducted to identify 7 topographies of attention to include in subsequent preference and reinforcer assessments. Two different assessment formats were evaluated until reliable results were achieved with 1 of them.

Effects of differential reinforcement and rules with feedback on preference for choice and verbal reports.

We evaluated the effects of differential reinforcement and accurate verbal rules with feedback on the preference for choice and the verbal reports of 6 adults. Participants earned points on a probabilistic schedule by completing the terminal links of a concurrent-chains arrangement in a computer-based game of chance. In free-choice terminal links, participants selected 3 numbers from an 8-number array; in restricted-choice terminal links participants selected the order of 3 numbers preselected by a computer program.