Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior in Center-Based Classrooms: Evaluation of Pre-teaching the Alternative Behavior

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

6-1-2013

School

Psychology

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of a differential reinforcement of alternative behavior procedure in decreasing disruptive behavior while simultaneously increasing the appropriate behavior of four children of typical development between the ages of 4 and 6 in center-based classrooms. We began with brief functional analyses for each child. Then, differential reinforcement procedures, with and without pre-teaching the alternative behavior, were compared using an alternating treatments design. Results indicated that the differential reinforcement procedure with pre-teaching resulted in lower levels of problem behavior and greater levels of the alternative behavior compared to differential reinforcement alone. Results are discussed in terms of implications for applied practice and functional assessment and intervention research. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York.

Publication Title

Journal of Behavioral Education

Volume

22

Issue

2

First Page

85

Last Page

102

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