Brief Report: Application of Proposed Model of Decreasing Reinforcement Intensity.

LaBlanc, Hagopian, Malieri, and Poling (2002) proposed a model for decreasing reinforcement intensity in clinical practice. This paper applies that model to the fading of a point system for a nine-year-old boy who displayed escape behavior around nightly homework assignments. Using a hanging criterion design, the author was able to track the changes in reinforcement density. This fading model produced rapid gains in the child's progress and the child moved quickly to a less restrictive form of intervention. Keywords: Token economies, fading, intermittent reinforcement, changing criterion designs. ********** The combination of token reinforcement (Wolery, Bailey, & Sugai, 1988) and response cost (Witt & Elliot, 1982) combined with soft reprimands (O'Leary, Kaufman, Kass, & Drabman, 1970; Pfiffner & O'Leary, 1987; Van Houten, Makenzie-Keating, Sameoto, & Coleavecchia, 1982) is highly effective in reducing behavior problems. In spite of the effectiveness of contingency management procedures, little research exists on methods to fade out such systems (see LaBlanc, Hagopian, Maglieri, & Poling, 2002). LaBlanc and colleagues (2002) proposed a model for fading out the intensity of reinforcement procedures. They state that (1) begin intensive; (2) increasing amount of behavior needed for reinforcers; (3) determine a reasonable terminal goal based on the age and functioning level of the participant; (4) establish a series of values or steps between the initial level and the proposed terminal level (33% to 50% a good range); (5) allow sufficient exposure to the current level of reinforcement before inflating the system; and (6) progress as quickly as possible to the final intervention level by using period probes to determine how quickly the intensity of the fading procedure can advance. One method that would meet the above characteristics would be if the program has variability in the behavior rates calculating the mean behavior rate and setting earning of the reinforcer at the mean level + 33% of the mean level. The author attempted to test this with a child who was on a complex token system involving the earning of points and both the loss of points for misbehavior and soft reprimands. Method Participant Participant was a nine-year-old boy, who attended a suburban school. Through his entire school career, the parent reported the participant was generally an A and B student in school. He appeared to have no classroom difficulty, with the exception of occasional report card comments about participant not following directions in class and incomplete work assignments. Setting The settings where the intervention took place in the child's home at the kitchen table where the child was to complete homework assignments. The participant was to start promptly on coming home from school approximately 3:30 p.m. and would continue until 5:30 p.m. No other children were in the home. Behavior/ Function The participant pouted, whined, became defiant, or tantrum (throw self on floor and crying and kicking) from 14x/week at home around homework context. The author assessed the function of these behaviors through a descriptive analysis, which involved the following steps: (1) interview of the parent (2) direct observation in both the home using an ABC-event recording procedure. The antecedent was always the parent telling the child to begin homework. Interviews suggested that the function was either escape or attention based. The observations revealed that the participant had a high probability of all four behaviors just after receiving the start command for homework (100%) of the time as opposed to low probability (0%) when the parent gave no commands. In addition, whether the parent at with the child to do the homework or went to the stove to cook did not appear to matter with respects to pleading to not start homework. …