Evaluating the use of programmed reinforcement in a correction procedure with children diagnosed with autism

Background Procedures that reduce errors while learning a repertoire play an important role in Applied Behavior Analysis for people with autism due to the detrimental effects that excessive exposure to error may have on learning. Previous studies have investigated the effects of correction procedures that require active student response after a trial with error. Some intervention manuals recommend against reinforcing responses after correction to prevent the establishment of prompt dependence. This study directly investigated the effect of reinforcement after an active-response correction procedure during tact training in four children with autism. An echoic-to-tact training procedure was used to train tacts. A “no reinforcement after correction” (NRC) condition was compared to a “reinforcement after correction” (RC) condition, using an adapted alternated treatments design. Results All participants needed less correction trials in RC than in NRC, and considering all 26 sessions in which both training procedures were implemented, participants’ performance was higher with RC than without in 17 sessions and was the same in 3 sessions. Conclusions We discuss the effectiveness of reinforcing correct responding after an active-response correction procedure, the absence of prompt dependence, and the implications of better correction procedures for applied settings.

Adapting Visual Response System Teaching Technology to the Conventional Classroom

The Visual Response System (VRS) is a specially constructed resource room in which high rates of active student response and virtually immediate feedback for those responses can be achieved. Eight to ten student desks are arranged in a horseshoe configuration with the teacher's desk at the open end. Each student responds to every Instructional item (by writing, placing an object, pointing, etc.) directly on the stage of an overhead projector built into the desk. Research has shown the VRS to be an effective instructional technology for teaching a wide range of skills to various student populations. The three most powerful instructional features of the VRS are active student response, immediate feedback, and student-student interaction. Since the implementation of a full-scale VRS classroom with its hardware and space requirements may be too costly for many schools, and since an operating VRS classroom would still be able to serve only a portion of the many students needing more effective instruction each day, this article describes a number of inexpensive, practical techniques for adapting the instructional features of the VRS to the conventional classroom.