Association for Behavior Analysis International

Examining post-treatment outcomes for the users of residential care facilities remains an important aspect in assessing generalization of progress over time and across settings. We will survey post-treatment outcomes of former students of the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center (JRC), a residential care facility that employs a highly consistent application of behavioral treatment and educational programming. All former JRC students who are reachable and willing to participate will be surveyed. The surveyed former students will include those who are classified as developmentally/cognitively typical as well as those with developmental delays. We will use both a subjective General Life Adjustment rating scale (performed by guardians and/or the former students themselves) and objective counts of certain quality of life (QOL) indicators. QOL/current status indicators will include the persons need for ongoing treatment services (e.g., medication, therapy, etc.), family/relationship status, place of residence status, educational status, employment status, and leisure pursuit information. Data will be reported in terms of descriptive statistics.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether positive reinforcers served as motivating operations for escape-maintained problem behavior. The participants were 4 typically developing children who engaged in problem behavior maintained by escape from demands. All procedures were conducted within a 90 min evaluation in a behavioral outpatient clinic. Interobserver agreement was assessed for 84% of sessions and averaged 95%. Brief functional analyses of problem behavior were conducted within a non-concurrent multiple baseline design across participants. Problem behavior was evaluated under escape conditions with and without a signaled positive reinforcer. During all conditions, escape from the demand was provided contingent on problem behavior. During the treatment (signaled positive reinforcer) condition, participants chose a toy/activity to obtain contingent on compliance with a demand. This toy/activity was placed next to the work task. For all participants, results showed that problem behavior was maintained by negative reinforcement (Figure 1, baseline left panels). Problem behavior decreased under the same escape conditions when a signaled positive reinforcer was present (treatment right panels). For all participants, results suggested that a signaled positive reinforcer was effective at altering the value of negative reinforcement without the need to use extinction procedures.

Subject is a 30 year old Puerto Rican male who suffered a traumatic brain injury as the result of a motor vehicle accident, residing in a post acute rehabilitation facility. He was four months post injury at the start of treatment and presented with the dilemma of whether learning tasks were more efficiently taught in English verses Spanish. First, learning rates were established for picture-naming tasks in both languages. Intervention consisted of teaching and responding in Spanish for clock-reading and English for word-reading tasks using Precision Teaching. Probes of same tasks using untrained languages were conducted every fifth day to assess if rate of generalization was greater from Spanish to English-trained tasks or viceversa. Initial learning trials yielded similar learning rates in both languages and subsequent trials assessed whether there was a language preference for skill generalization. This methodology stresses the importance of assessing learning acquisition in both languages, as well as determining the preferred method of instruction to promote maximal generalization of skills with bilingual, neurologically impaired individuals.

Investigation of how individual difference variables modulate brain activation provides an opportunity for identifying sources of between-subject variability in human imaging studies. In human neurophysiological research on threat and avoidance, little is known about how various risk factors for affective disorders (anxiety, depression) modulate brain activation patterns during avoidance. To address this issue, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging to understand how levels of trait anxiety (an increased tendency to perceive threats: STAI) and experiential avoidance (AAQ-2) modulate brain activation to threats that prompt avoidance. Imaging occurred while a healthy group of subjects (N=17) responded on a multiple FR avoidance-extinction schedule (16 s of threat-avoidance alternated with 16 s of extinction). Reported levels of experiential avoidance (AAQ-2) and trait anxiety (STAI) were correlated with activation during the initial transition to the threatening context. Significant negative correlations were found between activation associated with threat-avoidance and experiential avoidance in the right insula and trait anxiety in the left ventral putamen, bilateral thalamus, left DLPFC and dorsal medial anterior cingulate. These results suggest vulnerability factors associated with pathological avoidance modulate responsiveness in several brain regions responsible for behavioral regulation and threat recognition.