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Little attention has been given to how formal classroom instruction can be adapted to teach youths everyday skills such as the correct writing of biographic information frequently requested in transactions like applying for a job or a social security number and cashing a check. In this study, six youths in a special education classroom were taught to complete job application forms with the date, their name, signature, address, telephone number, date of birth, and a reference's name, address, and occupation. Each youth was trained on one item of biographic information at a time, after which he was tested on four application forms, including one on which he had not been trained., The tests show that after an item had been taught, it was correctly used in completing application forms on which the youths had been trained and forms on which they had never been trained. The study demonstrates the feasibility of teaching community‐living, vocation‐related skills to special‐education youths in a classroom setting.

Even though administrators must have effective staff‐management procedures to ensure implementation of desired programs, many traditional staff‐management procedures remain unevaluated. This study investigated the effectiveness of three such procedures. The administrator of an institution for the retarded (1) sent a memo instructing all staff to lead daily recreational activities, (2) sponsored a workshop teaching staff to lead such activities, and (3) assigned staff activity leaders and provided performance feedback to staff by publicly posting the daily average number of active residents on each ward. Neither the memo nor the workshops motivated staff to lead activities, but after staff were scheduled to lead such activities and given performance feedback, the average daily number of residents engaged in activities on four wards for 95 retarded persons increased from seven to 32. The administration of this facility has adopted similar procedures to maintain such activities on all wards.

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Key pecking for food was shaped in four crows within a conventional operant‐conditioning test chamber. When pecking stabilized, a metal screen with openings 2.5 cm high by 1.0 cm wide, was placed over the response key, so that the crow could still see but could no longer peck the key. At the same time, several dozen wooden matchsticks, which could be used to operate the key, were placed in the test chamber. The crows made no use of these during 50 to 75 hr of exposure to this condition. Subsequently, the behavior of two crows was shaped so that they approached the matchsticks, picked one up in their beaks, approached the response key with the matchstick in their beak, and finally operated the response key by poking the matchstick through the screen. This shaping procedure was ineffective with the two other crows. However, these birds were successfully trained through positional fading of the tool. This involved suspending a metal rod from the ceiling so that it hung directly in front of the response key, and the crow had only to peck it to operate the key. Then, the rod was gradually lowered by lengthening its tether until it eventually rested on the floor of the test chamber. The principal advantage of this methodology is the automatic recording of the terminal (tool‐using) behavior under study.

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Pigeons were presented with multiple schedules of alternating 90‐sec components. When components in which grain was never presented alternated with components in which grain was presented on a variable‐interval schedule, the average rate of responding in the variable‐interval components increased, showing overall positive behavioral contrast. Unlike previous reports, this study found that the response rates for all birds increased toward the end of the variable‐interval components as training proceeded. This increase in local response rate disappeared when the multiple schedule was composed solely of variable‐interval components and reappeared when the variable‐interval components were again alternated with extinction. This finding cannot be predicted or explained by recent theories of behavioral contrast based on autoshaping, and thus questions their sufficiency. We suggest that this local response‐rate increase results from the predictable change from high to low density of reinforcement at the end of the fixed‐duration component. Thus, the present effect apparently illustrates a different type of interaction between components of a multiple schedule than that described by previous theories of contrast. In a given procedure, either or both types of interaction may occur; neither provides a complete account of behavioral contrast.

Resumo não informado pela fonte indexada.

Resumo não informado pela fonte indexada.