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In most applied studies, experimenters attempt to increase the probability that data accurately reflect the subject's behavior by assessing the degree to which two observers agree that responding has occurred. ing the response and then independently recorded responding. After any session in which the per cent agreement calculated by the Whole-Session method (described below) was greater than 80%, the discussions stopped, and another recording session occurred.If a session resulted in an agreement score of less than 80%, another discussion and recording session occurred. After three consecutive sessions with agreement of at least 80%, the pre-experimental phase ended and the experimental phase began.Three rooms were used. The children were in a classroom; the observers seated approximately 3 m apart were in a second room separated from the first by a one-way mirror; the equipment (an event recorder, timer, and power supply) was in a third room acoustically isolated from the other two rooms. Sessions varied from 5 to 12 minutes, and in each session two observers recorded the responding of one child by closing one of the two silent microswitches that controlled separate pens on an event recorder.These pens were deflected from the beginning to the end of a response. A third pen on the event recorder, momentarily deflected at 5-sec intervals by an electronic timer, provided a permanent record of time against which the data could be analyzed. As the observations were made during an ongoing educational program, sessions began and ended when the children's location in the room facilitated observations.

Aggressive and self-injurious behaviors of four retarded children were reduced by combining various techniques with the differential reinforcement of other behaviors (DRO). In one study, aggressive responses of a severely retarded child were reduced when DRO was combined with a 30-sec timeout. In a second study, various aggressive classroom behaviors were reduced when the child was told "no" for an inappropriate response but earned puzzle pieces for periods of time when inappropriate responses did not occur. Exchangeable tokens were given to a third subject for every 15 min in which aggressive responding did not occur, while each inappropriate response resulted in the loss of all tokens accrued. Responding was decreased to a level far below baseline. For a fourth child, self-injurious responses were followed by "no", and intervals of time in which no self-injurious responding occurred earned candy. The rate of this behavior reduced significantly. In each case, the DRO procedure combined with the other techniques proved to be manageable for the teacher and successful in reducing the inappropriate behavior.Problems of disruptive and self-injurious behavior are particularly evident in mental retardation institutions and other educational settings. These behaviors often interrupt the individual's learning, interfere with appropriate behavior, disrupt other students, and sometimes cause damage to the individual involved.Previous researchers have used many techniques, as well as combinations of techniques, to deal with these and similar types of behavior.