APPLIED BEHAVIORAL OBJECTIVES COLLECTING/ANALYZING DATA - Essay Example

An exploratory analysis of task-interspersal procedures while teaching object labels to children with autism This article asserts that research has shown that (Volkert, et al., 2008, p. 335) “interspersing master tasks with new tasks facilitates learning under certain conditions.” Although research has shown this, the factors influencing the treatment plan is unknown. The authors then planned to investigate and evaluate the effects of similar and dissimilar interspersed task in relation to children with autism or developmental delays learning object labels.

The authors then conducted a set of analyses using a reinforcer. The reinforcer was given for correct responses on the autistic children with unknown and known object labels. The children’s behavior was intensified under interspersal conditions, when brief praise was given for correct responses. Some of the research (Volkert, et al., 2008, p. 335) was based on: Research also has suggested that interspersing instructions associated with a high probability of compliance (high p) with instructions associated with a lower probability of compliance (low p) results in increased compliance with low-p instructions, a procedure that has been referred to as behavioral momentum (Mace et al.

, 1988; Nevin, Mandel, & Atak, 1983). Mace et al. presented a series of high-p instructions immediately before a low-p instruction to adults with mental retardation who had a history of noncompliance. Compliance with the low-p requests increased under this intervention.However, this is just one study. This article relies on sound studies. Not just one study, but many were used to back up their testing of autistic children on object labels. The Key Points 1. (Volkert, et al., 2008, pp. 335-336) The purpose of Experiment 1 was to examine the benefits of the interspersal technique when (a) food reinforcers were selected on the basis of a systematic preference assessment, (b) interspersed maintenance tasks involved similar versus dissimilar materials and instructions relative to the unknown task, and (c) more reinforcement was provided for correct responses on the unknown tasks than for correct responses on the known tasks (Charlop et al., 1992). After no clear benefits of the interspersal technique were found, it was hypothesized that reinforcer quality may influence the effectiveness of the interspersal procedure.

Therefore, several exploratory analyses of this hypothesis were conducted in Experiment 2 to evaluate the extent to which the quality of the reinforcer(e.g., praise vs. preferred food reinforcers) provided for correct unknown or known responses influenced the the effectiveness of the interspersal technique.2. (Volkert, et al., 2008, p 330) In Experiment 2, acquisition of object labels was compared across the constant and interspersal conditions when either high quality reinforcement (praise plus food or enthusiastic praise) or low-quality reinforcement (brief praise only) was provided for correct responses to the unknown tasks.

Nonetheless, the interspersal procedure still provided no benefit over the constant condition for 2 of 3 participants. Therefore, high-quality reinforcers were introduced for correct known responsesbased on the results of Mace et al. (1997).Classroom ApplicationTo undertake the research, experiment 1, five autistic children, were used. All of these children had behavior problems. These children were 4-6 year olds. Three conditions were present, constant, interspersal, and interspersal (Volkert, et al.

, 2008, p 339). These conditions were alternated to understand the basic preference assessment, and then compare the results (Volkert, et al., 2008, p 339). The results were little or differences in the two interspersal conditions (Volkert, et al., 2008, p. 340). Volkert, et al (2008, p.340) states “These findings were replicated even when the difficulty of the task was increased, reinforcement was thinned for the known tasks, and a reversal design was used.” In Experiment 2, (Volkert, et al., 2008, p. 340) “Two unknown object labels wereassigned to each training condition, and one interspersal condition was alternated with the constant condition.

” The same subjects were used. Volkert, et al. (2008, p. 345) reports “inconsistent results were obtained across participants when brief praise only (a presumablylower quality reinforcer) was used instead.” The lower reinforcer just did not work with these children. They did not respond as well as in the first experiment. These reports and experiments help open up discussion on interspersal conditions with autistic children. The authors relied heavily on reports and statistics, which was outstanding.

However, their results were based on five children. This is not enough to jump to conclusions Applied Behavior Analysis should have been used on more than just the five children. The authors need to use this report in order to fund further research into this subject. This report shows that autistic children with more reinforcement have a greater probability of learning. Applied Behavior Analysis, as the majority of reports used to back up this article, proves that positive reinforcement works, not only with autistic children, but with all children.

This study needs to focus on a wider range of subjects, age, and cultures to be a great study. As it stands, this article would make a good research paper, but not a study. BibliographyVolkert, V., D.C. Lerman, N. Trosclair, L. Addison, and T. Kodak. (2008). Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. 41:3, 335-350. Accessed 19 Sept 2008 from http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/articles/2008/jaba-41-03-0335.pdf