Andrew W. Gardner, David P. Wacker, & Eric W. Boelter. (2009).
An evaluation of the interaction between quality of attention and negative reinforcement with
children who display escape-maintained problem behavior.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
42, 343-348.
The choice-making behavior of 2 typically developing children who
engaged in problem behavior maintained by negative reinforcement
was evaluated within a concurrent-operants assessment that varied
the quality of attention across free-play and demand conditions. The
results demonstrated that it was possible to bias responding towards
academic demands for both participants by providing high-quality
attention, despite the continuous availability of negative reinforcement.
The current study extended brief clinical methods with typically
developing children and demonstrated how different qualities of
attention provided across concurrent schedules could bias responding.
DESCRIPTORS: brief experimental analysis, concurrent operants, establishing operations, noncompliance, quality of attention