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Inadequate physical activity increases the risks related to several health problems in children; however, increasing physical activity mitigates these risks. In this study, we examined the relations between moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and several environmental conditions (attention, interactive play, alone, escape) with 4 preschool children. We compared the experimental conditions to a control condition and a naturalistic baseline according to a combined multielement and reversal design. Results indicated that all participants were most active in the interactive play condition and that the percentage of MVPA varied across experimental and control conditions. In addition, the frequency and duration of bouts of MVPA were greatest in the interactive play condition. The current study presents a methodology for the identification of environmental contingencies that support increased levels of MVPA in young children, and it holds promise for improving our understanding of the variables related to physical activity.

Each day, people encounter stimuli they find unpleasant. Some children with autism may require systematic instruction to acquire the communication skills necessary to request the termination of such aversive stimuli. We taught 2 school‐aged boys with autism a mand (e.g., signing “stop”) that could be used to escape a variety of aversive stimuli. First, we employed a systematic assessment to identify aversive stimuli to use during training. We then conducted mand training sequentially across those stimuli until sufficient exemplars were trained for generalization to occur to untrained stimuli. For both participants, cross‐stimulus generalization was observed after training with 2 stimuli. Participants manded for escape in the presence of aversive stimuli, but almost never manded in the presence of preferred stimuli or when the programmed stimuli were absent. In addition, we found an inverse relation between acquisition of the mand and engagement in problem behavior and evidence of generalization to nontraining contexts.

Six pigeons were studied in a token economy in which tokens could be produced and exchanged for food on one side of an experimental chamber and for water on the opposite side of the chamber. Responses on one key produced tokens according to a token‐production fixed ratio (FR) schedule. Responses on a second key produced an exchange period during which tokens were exchanged for water or food. In Experiment 1a, food tokens could be earned and exchanged under restricted food budgets, and water tokens could be earned and exchanged under water restricted budgets. In Experiment 1b, a third (generalized) token type could be earned and exchanged for either food or water under water restricted budgets. Across Experiments 1a and 1b, the number of tokens accumulated prior to exchange increased as the exchange‐production schedule was increased. In Experiment 1b, pigeons produced more generalized than specific tokens, suggesting enhanced reinforcing efficacy of generalized tokens. In Experiment 2, the FR token‐production price was manipulated under water restriction and then under food restriction. Production of each token type generally declined as a function of its own price and increased as a function of the price of the alternate type, demonstrating own‐price and cross‐price elasticity. Production of food and water tokens often changed together, indicating complementarity. Production of specific and generalized tokens changed in opposite directions, indicating substitutability. This is the first demonstration of sustained generalized functions of tokens in nonhumans, and illustrates a promising method for exploring economic contingencies in a controlled environment.

The present study examined how product placement and in‐store advertisement affect food selections of approximately 100,000 customers across 2 different stores using an alternating treatments design embedded in a multiple baseline design. Our results documented a substantial increase in the sales of healthy food products and a concurrent decrease in the sales of less healthy items via simple environmental modifications. These data suggest an effective means of altering unhealthy food choices at store checkouts.

The purpose of this study was to model hierarchical classification as contextually controlled, generalized relational responding or relational framing. In Experiment 1, a training procedure involving nonarbitrarily related multidimensional stimuli was used to establish two arbitrary shapes as contextual cues for ‘member of’ and ‘includes’ relational responding, respectively. Subsequently those cues were used to establish a network of arbitrary stimuli in particular hierarchical relations with each other, and then test for derivation of further untrained hierarchical relations as well as for transformation of functions. Resultant patterns of relational framing showed properties of transitive class containment, asymmetrical class containment, and unilateral property induction, consistent with conceptions of hierarchical classification as described within the cognitive developmental literature. Experiment 2 extended the basic model by using “fuzzy category” stimuli and providing a better controlled test of transformation of functions. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Several studies have shown that children prefer contingent reinforcement (CR) rather than yoked noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) when continuous reinforcement is programmed in the CR schedule. Preference has not, however, been evaluated for practical schedules that involve CR. In Study 1, we assessed 5 children's preference for obtaining social interaction via a multiple schedule (periods of fixed‐ratio 1 reinforcement alternating with periods of extinction), a briefly signaled delayed reinforcement schedule, and an NCR schedule. The multiple schedule promoted the most efficient level of responding. In general, children chose to experience the multiple schedule and avoided the delay and NCR schedules, indicating that they preferred multiple schedules as the means to arrange practical schedules of social interaction. In Study 2, we evaluated potential controlling variables that influenced 1 child's preference for the multiple schedule and found that the strong positive contingency was the primary variable.

The prevalence of obesity continues to increase in the United States (Gordon‐Larsen, The, & Adair, 2010). Obesity can be attributed, in part, to overconsumption of energy‐dense foods. Given that overeating plays a role in the development of obesity, interventions that teach individuals to identify and consume appropriate portion sizes are warranted. Specifically, interventions that teach individuals to estimate portion sizes correctly without the use of aids may be critical to the success of nutrition education programs. The current study evaluated the use of a stimulus equivalence paradigm to teach 9 undergraduate students to estimate portion size accurately. Results suggested that the stimulus equivalence paradigm was effective in teaching participants to make accurate portion size estimations without aids, and improved accuracy was observed in maintenance sessions that were conducted 1 week after training. Furthermore, 5 of 7 participants estimated the target portion size of novel foods during extension sessions. These data extend existing research on teaching accurate portion‐size estimations and may be applicable to populations who seek treatment (e.g., overweight or obese children and adults) to teach healthier eating habits.

Abstract We evaluated a multicomponent intervention for improving the cover‐letter writing skills of individuals with intellectual disabilities. An intervention that included modeling, self‐monitoring, prompting, and feedback increased correct performance for all participants. In addition, the skill was demonstrated across audiences.

When a neutral cue is followed by a significant event such as food delivery, some animals become engaged with the cue itself and acquire cue‐directed behaviors. One type of cue‐directed behavior is observed following insertion of a lever used as a conditioned stimulus (CS). Rats showing robust approach behavior to the lever also display impulsivity and altered attention, as compared to rats showing behavior directed toward the reward delivery location. The current study used a light CS to categorize rats' propensity for cue‐directed behavior, and assessed whether individual differences in impulsivity and related behaviors still emerged. During the light–food pairings, some rats displayed enhanced rearing or orienting to the light (Orienters) prior to showing food cup approach behavior, while other rats only showed food cup approach behavior (Nonorienters). Our results showed that Orienters made more impulsive and risky decisions in two different choice tasks, and were quicker to leave a familiar dark environment to enter a novel bright field. Orienters also showed less accurate target detection when a visual distractor was introduced during an attentional challenge. Our current study suggests that light CS‐induced rearing/orienting behavior might not necessarily share an identical mechanism with lever CS‐approach behavior in predicting impulsivity‐related behaviors.

Some children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display persistent errors that are not responsive to commonly used prompting or error‐correction strategies; one possible reason for this is that the behavior–consequence relations are not readily discriminable (Davison & Nevin, 1999). In this study, we increased the discriminability of the behavior–consequence relations in conditional‐discrimination acquisition tasks for 3 children with ASD using schedule manipulations in concert with a unique visual display designed to increase the saliency of the differences between consequences in effect for correct responding and for errors. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to show that correct responding increased for all participants, and, after 1 or more exposures to the intervention, correct responding persisted to varying degrees across participants when the differential reinforcement baseline was reintroduced to assess maintenance. These findings suggest that increasing the saliency of behavior–consequence relations may help to increase correct responding in children with ASD who exhibit persistent errors. Video Slides