Discrimination Acquisition in Children With Developmental Disabilities Under Immediate and Delayed Reinforcement

Abstract

We evaluated the discrimination acquisition of individuals with developmental disabilities under immediate and delayed reinforcement. In Experiment 1, discrimination between two alternatives was examined when reinforcement was immediate or delayed by 20 s, 30 s, or 40 s. In Experiment 2, discrimination between 2 alternatives was compared across an immediate reinforcement condition and a delayed reinforcement condition in which subjects could respond during the delay. In Experiment 3, discrimination among 4 alternatives was compared across immediate and delayed reinforcement. In Experiment 4, discrimination between 2 alternatives was examined when reinforcement was immediate and 0‐s or 30‐s intertrial intervals (ITI) were programmed. For most subjects, discrimination acquisition occurred under immediate reinforcement. However, for some subjects, introducing delays slowed or prevented discrimination acquisition under some conditions. Results from Experiment 4 suggest that longer ITIs cannot account for the lack of discrimination under delayed reinforcement.

The effect of brief delays to reinforcement on the acquisition of tacts in children with autism

“…However, they extend the findings of Grindle and Remington by suggesting that at least some children may acquire tacts more quickly with immediate reinforcement. These data also extend the findings of Sy and Vollmer () in that they suggest that even very brief delays to reinforcement can negatively affect skill acquisition for some children with autism. Although the differences in the number of sessions required to reach the mastery criterion were relatively small for the participants in the current study, they may nevertheless be meaningful when multiplied by the number of tacts that children with autism are typically taught in early intensive behavioral intervention programs.…”

“…Grindle and Remington () showed that three children with autism acquired tacts with a 5‐s delay to reinforcement, but they did not compare this delay with other levels of delay. In four experiments, Sy and Vollmer () examined the acquisition of a conditional discrimination skill among children with intellectual disabilities across conditions of immediate and delayed reinforcement. They found that immediate reinforcement was more effective than delayed reinforcement for some participants, but for many other participants, delays did not inhibit acquisition.…”

“…Although their results were informative, the briefest delay to reinforcement examined by Sy and Vollmer () was 20 s. However, shorter delays are likely to occur in the context of discrete‐trial training (DTT), which is a common method of instruction in early intensive behavioral intervention programs for children with autism. After a correct response, therapists may be momentarily distracted, record data, or take 5 to 10 s to find and deliver a reinforcer.…”

The effects of procedural integrity errors during auditory–visual conditional discrimination training: A preliminary investigation

“…Researchers have studied procedural integrity errors during discrete trial teaching (Carroll, Kodak, & Fisher, ; Carroll, Kodak, & Adolf, ; DiGennaro Reed et al, ; Jenkins, Hirst, & DiGennaro Reed, ), conditional discrimination training (Bergmann, Kodak, & LeBlanc, ; Sy & Vollmer, ), prompting hierarchies (Grow et al, ), and self‐care behavior chains (Donnelly & Karsten, ) among other teaching procedures. Across studies, omission and commission errors have been evaluated, both in isolation and in combination.…”

Accumulated reinforcers increase academic responding and suppress problem behavior for students with Attention‐Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

“…Delay to reinforcer delivery and duration of reinforcer access affect the reinforcing efficacy of items and activities and children's choices for those items (e.g., DeLeon et al, 2014;Fisher, Thompson, Piazza, Crosland, & Gotjen, 1997;Hoch, McComas, Johnson, Faranda, & Guenther, 2002;Neef, Shade, & Miller, 1994;Steinhilber & Johnson, 2007). Reinforcers may be most effective when delivered immediately (e.g., Sy & Vollmer, 2012). However, immediate reinforcer delivery is not always possible, particularly in school settings.…”