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Abstract Sleep‐related infant deaths are one of the top causes of infant mortality in the United States. A few behavior analytic studies have examined behavioral skills training to teach adults to arrange safe infant sleeping environments. These studies were conducted in an analogue environment, and no data were collected outside the training setting. The purpose of the current study was to replicate and extend the extant literature. We taught caregivers to arrange safe infant sleeping environments in a community‐based organization. Thereafter, we assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of a technology‐based contingency management procedure to examine caregivers' adherence with arrangement of a safe sleeping environment for their newborns across a 2‐week period. As in previous studies, behavioral skills training resulted in positive outcomes, and follow‐up data suggested that the technology‐based contingency management procedure may be a promising approach to promoting adherence with infant sleeping environment recommendations.

Abstract Response‐independent schedules involve the delivery of an item independent of a response requirement. Often described in the applied behavior analytic literature as “noncontingent reinforcement,” they have also frequently been used to reduce undesired or problematic behaviors. The current study examined the use of an automated response‐independent food schedule on the behaviors and sound levels of shelter dogs. Several dogs were included in a 6‐week reversal design, where a fixed‐time 1 min schedule was compared with a baseline condition. Eleven behaviors were measured, as were two areas of each kennel and the overall and session sound intensity (dB) that occurred during the study. The results demonstrated that the fixed‐time schedule increased overall activity while decreasing inactivity and led to a reduction in the overall sound intensity measured. Session and hour‐to‐hour sound‐intensity data were less clear, suggesting a potential contextual conditioning effect as well as a need for adjusted methods to study shelter sound. The above are discussed in terms of their potential welfare benefits for shelter dogs as well as the translational approach that this and similar research could contribute to the application and functional understanding of response‐independent schedules.

Abstract One of the diagnostic characteristics of individuals with autism spectrum disorders includes engaging in restricted and repetitive behavior. Research has shown that individuals will often display problem behavior when access to restricted and repetitive behavior is blocked. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the use of functional communication training and schedule thinning to treat aggression displayed by three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders when higher level restrictive and repetitive behavior was blocked. Further, we assessed whether all steps in a schedule‐thinning sequence were necessary as well as extended the practicality of these procedures by removing the continuous signal during the delay to reinforcement. The results indicated that functional communication with schedule thinning reduced aggression related to blocking access to engaging in higher level restrictive and repetitive behavior for all participants.

Abstract Previous research has examined the predictive validity of heart rate on destructive behavior; however, such research has yet to improve clinical practice or enhance our understanding of the relation between physiology and destructive behavior. The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive validity of heart rate on varying topographies and functions of destructive behavior while controlling antecedent and consequent events through functional analysis. We first demonstrated the reliability of the Polar H10 heart rate monitor and assessed the feasibility of its use in simulated functional analysis sessions. However, across four consecutively enrolled patients, heart rate was not found to be a reliable predictor of destructive behavior, regardless of its topography or function. Instead, functional reinforcer presence and absence was sufficient to predict socially reinforced destructive behavior. This study may provide a framework for the future assessment of other biological measures in relation to destructive behavior occurrence and nonoccurrence.

Abstract Resurgence of previously reinforced behavior represents a challenge to otherwise successful interventions based on differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA). Expanded‐operant treatments seek to increase the number of functional alternative behaviors through DRA, thereby potentially mitigating resurgence. However, the few studies that have directly examined these methods as a tool for resurgence mitigation have provided limited and unclear results. Thus, the present experiments were designed to investigate the effect of expanded‐operant DRA methods on resurgence of previously reinforced behavior using rat subjects. In two experiments, following a baseline phase in which a target response was trained, groups of rats experienced concurrent (i.e., five simultaneous alternative responses), serial (i.e., five sequentially available alternative responses), or single DRA interventions arranging similar rates of alternative reinforcement in order to examine potential differences in resurgence. Both experiments showed that neither serial nor concurrent DRA expanded‐operant treatments reduced resurgence compared with single DRA regardless of whether stimuli associated with previously reinforced alternative responses were removed (Experiment 1) or remained present (Experiment 2) for the serial‐DRA group. Further, a primacy effect in resurgence was obtained for the serial‐DRA group in both experiments. Overall, these results suggest that expanded‐operant treatments may not help to reduce resurgence.

Abstract Caregiver adherence to treatment plans is likely maintained by negative reinforcement and can contact extinction when child responding relapses. When caregiver adherence contacts extinction, caregiver nonadherence, such as reinforcing their child's challenging behavior, relapses, threatening treatment efficacy. Previous laboratory models demonstrating the relapse of caregiver nonadherence only evaluated treatment for behavior maintained by social‐positive reinforcement, not that maintained by social‐negative reinforcement. These models only measured caregiver nonadherence as discrete events, which cannot capture the magnitude of each error. The present study was an evaluation of the relapse of caregiver nonadherence during simulated treatments for escape‐maintained challenging behavior. First, caregivers placed demands in a home‐like setting and a research confederate responded to these demands in a manner mimicking clinical clients. Next, caregivers were taught to implement treatment in a clinical setting and the confederate's behavior gradually improved. Last, caregivers returned to the home‐like setting and confederate challenging behavior relapsed. Nonadherence relapsed for all caregivers, demonstrating the need for additional research on methods for mitigating caregiver relapse during treatment of children's challenging behavior and the usefulness of the proposed measurement system for future research.

Abstract Over the last 3 decades, the use and popularity of canid models for basic and applied behavioral research has grown dramatically, and for good reasons. Dogs are uniquely among the human world, living and working in our homes and places of employment while an even greater population lives on the outskirts of human life, scavenging and navigating the city life. This provides a rich continuum of environmental contexts for the canine experience, leading to some unique and even human‐like behaviors in animals. The articles in this special issue provide additional insight into factors that influence canine welfare, methods for evaluating dogs' preferences and the reinforcing effectiveness of stimuli, trick learning and retention, concept learning, and scent detection performance under sparse reinforcement conditions. Here we provide an overview of these articles and their contribution to our understanding of canine behavior.

Rachlin's interpretations of self‐control depend on the short‐term versus the long‐term consequences of behavior. Sometimes these effects support each other (typing an abstract produces a written product now and is later read by others). Sometimes they conflict (procrastination now is incompatible with finishing the abstract by deadline). We usually reserve the language of self‐control for human cases where long‐term consequences are chosen over short‐term ones. Rachlin made this distinction salient in ontogeny, but it also applies to selection in phylogeny (Darwinian evolution) and sociogeny (behavior passed from one organism to another). Our account examines relations between short‐term and long‐term consequences at each level of selection. For example, sexual selection has adaptive, short‐term mating consequences but may drive species to extreme specializations that jeopardize long‐term survival. In sociogeny, as in the Tragedy of the Commons, group members may get immediate economic benefits from exploiting resources but exhaust those resources over the long term. Whatever the level, when short‐term and long‐term consequences have opposing effects, adaptive behavior may depend on whether temporally extended contingencies exert more control than more immediate benefits.

Abstract We reviewed 13 articles that used functional analysis in the assessment of undesirable behavior emitted by dogs, cats, a baboon, a lemur, a chimpanzee, and a vulture. The functional analysis produced a clear outcome for 32 of 33 subjects, demonstrating its efficacy with nonhumans. We propose several avenues for further examination of its application to nonhumans.

Abstract Extensive reviews of functional analysis literature were conducted 10 (Beavers et al., 2013) and 20 (Hanley et al., 2003) years ago; we expanded this review to capture the vast and innovative functional analysis research that has occurred over the past decade. Our review produced 1,333 functional analysis outcomes from 326 studies on the functional analysis of problem behavior between June 2012 and May 2022. Some characteristics of functional analysis studies were similar across the current and previous two reviews (e.g., child participants, developmental disability diagnosis, use of line graphs depicting session means, differentiated response outcomes). Other characteristics deviated from the previous two reviews (e.g., increase in autistic representation, outpatient settings, use of supplementary assessments, the inclusion of tangible conditions, and multiple function outcomes; decrease in session durations). We update previously reported participant and methodological characteristics, summarize outcomes, comment on recent trends, and propose future directions in the functional analysis literature.