Direct Measurement of the Listening of Hearing-Impaired Children

Abstract

Listening, a significant dimension of the behavior of hearing-impaired children, may be measured directly by recording childrens' responses to obtain audio narrations programmed via a conjugate reinforcement system. Twelve hearing-impaired, school-aged children responded in varying ways to the opportunity to listen. Direct and continuous measurement of listening has relevance for evaluation of remediation methods and for discovery of variables potentially related to listening.

Conjugate reinforcement: a brief review and suggestions for applications to the assessment of automatically reinforced behavior

“…In terms of behavior-behavior relations, the results from the Mira (1970) study are similar to those from recent studies on automatically reinforced problem behavior. For example, Rapp (2005) found that for some individuals the probability of engaging in specific forms of stereotypy increased in the presence of specific forms of ambient stimulation (auditory, visual, or both).…”

“…Studies in this section fall into one or more of these categories. Mira (1970) evaluated preferences for auditory and visual stimulation of children with hearing impairments using accelerating and decelerating (i.e., nonresponding) contingencies within a two-operanda arrangement. Participants first learned to respond on the accelerating contingencies for auditory and visual stimulation (on separate hand-switches) and, subsequently, to withhold responding on the decelerating contingency to access the same stimulation.…”

Revisiting conjugate schedules

“…Second, P-21, P-22, and P-24 consistently emitted higher rates of "N"key responses during the conjugate negative punishment phases than in the conjugate reinforcement phases (P-30's responding increased across successive phases). Previous research using conjugate and "reverse conjugate" schedules has reported similar effects when participants are exposed to redundant stimulation (Edwards & Peeke, 1970;Lovitt, 1966;1967;1968a, l968b;Mira, 1970;Switzky & Haywood, 1973). It is possible that noncontingent access to clear pictures produced more rapid satiation for the visual stimulation (as indicated by more frequent "N" key responses to change the picture).…”

“…Since Lindsley's initial application, researchers have used conjugate preparations extensively to examine operant behavior of infants (Rovee-Collier & Capatides, 1979;Rovee-Collier & Gekoski, 1979;Weisberg & Rovee-Collier, 1998). More broadly, other studies have used conjugate schedules to examine (a) individuals' sensitivity to social stimuli presented during product advertising (Lindsley, 1962;Nathan & Wallace, 1965;Winters & Wallace, 1970;Wolf, Newman, & Winters, 1969); (b) the attending behavior of individuals in supervision or psychotherapeutic contexts (Lindsley, 1963;Nathan, 1965;Nathan, Bull, & Rossi, 1968;Nathan, Marland, & Lindsley, 1965;Nathan, Schneller, & Lindsley, 1964;Nathan, Smith, & Rossi, 1968); and (c) individuals' preferences for auditory stimulation (Lovitt, 1966;1967, 1968a, 1968bMira, 1968;1970;Morgan & Lindsley, 1966), among others (e.g., Lindsley & Conran, 1962;Lindsley, Hobika, & Etsten, 1961). While these researchers used conjugate schedules in their preparations to examine other phenomena as independent variables, the studies did not examine conjugate reinforcement per se.…”

An evaluation of synchronous reinforcement for increasing on‐task behavior in preschool children

“…Since Lindley's original work in this area, the conjugate-reinforcement paradigm has been used to study a variety of behaviors and psychological phenomena. The most common are (a) infant operant behavior and various psychological phenomena regarding infants such as infant exploratory behavior (e.g., Rovee & Rovee, 1969), positive behavioral contrast (e.g., Rovee-Collier & Capatides, 1979), infant play behavior (e.g., panel pressing; Lipsitt, Penderson, & DeLucia, 1966), (b) the reinforcing efficacy of various stimuli including social reinforcers (e.g., Edwards & Peek, 1970;Lindsley, 1963;Lovitt, 1967;McKirdy & Rovee, 1978;Mira, 1969;Mira, 1970;Siqueland & DeLucia, 1969), and (c) the effects on increasing or decreasing target behavior such as work output (e.g., Greene & Hoats, 1969), physical activity (e.g., Caouette & Reid, 1991;Dozier, Iwata, Thompson, & Neidert, 2007;Lancioni et al, 2003), and motor activity (e.g., Switzky & Haywood, 1973).…”