Some adjudicated adolescents receive treatment for their offenses in residential facilities. Detained adolescents' engagement in either low levels of compliant behavior or excess behavior (e.g., swearing, gestures) while following commands from residential personnel may result in decreased opportunities for those youth to access preferred activities. The current study employed nonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants designs to evaluate the effects of a procedure to increase seven detained adolescents' quiet compliance with academic and vocational demands. Results show that problem behavior decreased to zero or near-zero levels for each participant during simulated conditions and suggest that self-control, alone or in combination with a differential reinforcement of low rate behavior for omitting problem behavior, may have been responsible for the behavior changes. We discuss some clinical implications of the findings.

Reyes, Vollmer, and Hall (2011) found that 2 arousal suppression strategies, 1 of which involved counting backward from 100 to 0, decreased sexual arousal for 2 male sex offenders with intellectual disabilities. In the current clinical study, we taught 3 adolescent males who had been adjudicated for illegal sexual behavior to self-report arousal when they were presented with sexually arousing visual stimuli. Based on the procedures in the Reyes et al. ( 2011) study, we taught participants to count backward from 100 to 0 when they verbally reported a criterion level of sexual arousal in the presence of visual media. Subsequently, we gradually faded therapists' instructions for 2 participants until they independently used the arousal suppression exercise. Results showed that each participant's self-reported sexual arousal decreased upon implementation of treatment relative to baseline. Decreased sexual arousal continued even under conditions of faded therapist instructions for 2 participants. The relative merits of using self-report measures are discussed.

Adolescents in secured residential facilities may engage in excess behavior immediately following verbal directives or corrective statements from staff. Excess behavior may include verbal aggression, indices of disrespect (e.g., eye rolling, grunting, and obscene gestures), or even physical aggression. These excess behaviors may evoke further directives or corrective statements from staff that, in turn, escalate the adolescent’s excess behavior and can produce undesirable effects for both the adolescent (e.g., loss of privileges) and staff members (e.g., increased burn out). Teaching detained adolescents to respond appropriately to staff directives and corrective statements may produce large collateral changes in the way staff interact with adolescents in detention facilities. These changes could be conceptualized as a behavioral cusp. We used behavioral skills training to teach 11 adolescent males to respond appropriately to staff directives. All 11 students showed low percentages of trials with appropriate reactions in baseline and high percentages of trials with appropriate reactions during treatment and generalization sessions. Further, two students showed maintenance of the skill 1 month and 5 months following treatment.

Adjudicated adolescents detained in residential facilities for illegal sexual behavior, as well as adolescents living at home, may engage in problem behaviors such as excessive vocalizations. In residential detention facilities, these excessive vocalizations may result in disciplinary action and loss of privileges. Moreover, excessive vocalizations may also reduce the amount of positive social interactions that staff members and caregivers have with the adolescents. The current study evaluated a multiple-schedule procedure for reducing excessive vocalizations displayed by three adolescents. The procedure involved (a) a red card to signal that attention was not available and (b) either a green card or no card to signal that attention was available. Results show that the participants learned to abstain from vocalizing for up to 30 min when a caregiver presented the red card. In addition, the treatment effects persisted during generalization assessment sessions.