Chapter 7 Intermittent Reinforcement to Decrease Behavior Study Questions 1 Describe briefly point by point how Tommy s talking out in class was reduced The undesirable behavior talking out was given the following precise behavioral definition talking to the teacher or classmates without the teacher s permission talking singing or humming to himself and making statements not related to the ongoing class discussion A practice teacher located in the back of the room recorded Tommy s talk outs during one 50 minute sessions per day A second trained observer also recorded Tommy s talk outs to ensure the accuracy of the observations In phase 1 of the program the behavior was recorded for 10 sessions It was found that Tommy averaged about one talk out every 9 minutes or about 0 11 per minute In phase 2 Tommy was told the definition of a talk out and instructed that he would be allowed 5 minutes of free play time at or near the end of the day if at the end of the 50 minute session he had made three or fewer talk outs i e fewer than about one every 17 minutes At the end of each session the teacher told Tommy whether he had met the requirement but during the session he was never told the number of talk out recorded This procedure was quite effective During phase 2 which lasted 15 sessions Tommy averaged about one talk out every 54 minutes 0 02 per minute Moreover he never exceeded the upper limit of three per session In the third and final phase the reinforcement schedule was removed and Tommy was told that he would no longer receive free time for low rates of talk outs Over the eight sessions of this phase for which data were taken his rate of talking out increased to an average of one every 33 minutes 0 03 per minute Although this rate was higher than the rate during the treatment procedure phase 2 it was still a great deal lower than the rate before the procedure was introduced phase 1 Thus the treatment has a beneficial effect even after it was terminated 2 Explain in general was a DRL schedule is Give an example of one that occurs in everyday life Differential reinforcement of low DRL rates is a schedule of reinforcement in which a reinforcer is presented only if a particular response occurs at a low rate For example a student who always calls out the correct answer deprives classmates of the chance to respond to the teacher s questions 3 Define limited responding DRL and given an example One type of DRL called limited responding DRL specifies a maximum allowable number of responses during a certain time interval in order for a reinforcer to occur This was the type of schedule used with Tommy In that case an interval 50 minutes was specified and reinforcement occurred at the end of the interval if it contained fewer than a specified number of responses three talk outs 4 Define spaced responding DRL and give an example A second type of DRL called spaced responding DRL requires that a specified behavior not occur during a specified interval and after the interval has passed an instance of that behavior must then occur in order for a reinforcer to occur For example a student who always calls out the correct answer deprives classmates of the chance to respond to the teacher s questions Naturally we would not wish to 5 6 7 8 9 eliminate this child s correct answering We would hope to reduce the calling out behavior We might do this by placing the behavior on the following type of DRL schedule Any target response that occurs after 15 minutes of the previous target response is immediately reinforced any target response that occurs within 15 minutes of the previous target response is not reinforced Note that a target response before the interval has passed causes the timing of the interval to start over again This procedure is called a spaced responding DRL 1 response 15 minute schedule This type of schedule requires that responses by emitted for reinforcement to occur On the limitedresponding schedule used with Tommy the individual need not respond at all to obtain reinforcement How is a spaced responding DRL procedurally similar to and different from an FI schedule A fixed interval schedule is where a reinforcer is presented the first instance of a specific response after a fixed period of time A spaced responding DRL requires that a specified behavior not occur during a specified interval and after the interval has passed an instance of that behavior must then occur in order for a reinforcer to occur What is a procedural difference between a spaced responding DRL and an FD schedule A fixed duration schedule is where a reinforcer is presented only in a behavior occurs continuously for a fixed period of time A spaced responding DRL require that a specified behavior not occur during a specified interval and after the interval has passed an instance of that behavior must then occur in order for a reinforcer to occur Describe in some detail two examples at least one of which is not in the text of how DRL would be useful in treating a behavior problem Another example of the use of spaced responding DRL is the reinforcement of slow speech in a student who speaks too rapidly The student would be asked questions such as How are you or Where do you live for which standard responses are reinforced but only if they encompass a certain minimum time period whose length is determined by what the teacher regards as a normally acceptable rate of speech Thus the sequence of respond wait respond is reinforced provided that the wait is long enough Another example would be a child who likes to run everywhere instead of walking Explain what a DRO schedule is Given an example of one that occurs in everyday life Differential reinforcement of zero responding DRO is a schedule in which a reinforcer is presented only if a specified response does not occur during a specified period of time For example inappropriate behaviors in classrooms Describe in some detail two examples at least one of which is not in this chapter of how a DRP might be useful in treating behavior problems Consider the case of Gerry a 9 year old boy of normal intelligence who scratched and rubbed his skin so severely that he produced open sores all over his body Because of this problem he had spent most of his time in hospitals and had never attended school A DRL procedure would not have been appropriate because none of Gerry s skin scratching and rubbing behavior was tolerable The procedure that was used is referred 10 11 12 13 14 15 to a DRO