Applied Behavior Analysis Commons^™

Improving Procedural Fidelity And Treatment Outcome In Natural Environment Training Using Peer Feedback, Kara Shawbitz

All NMU Master's Theses

Procedural fidelity as it relates to client outcomes is a topic of growing interest in applied behavior analysis. Behavior analytic treatments are implemented by Registered Behavior Technicians (RBTs). The current requirements for the RBT credential is a forty hour training and a 75 question examination. However, research has shown that immediately following training, procedural fidelity decreases. Many methods have been tried to improve procedural fidelity following training, including performance feedback. The present study evaluated the effect of peer feedback immediately following a natural environment training (NET) session and peer feedback immediately preceding the next opportunity. For all three of the …

Players' Preference For Losses Disguised As Wins In Keno: A Concurrent Choice Procedure, Sarah Hall

All NMU Master's Theses

Roughly 3% of American citizens are considered to be problem gamblers (NCPG, 2014). This compulsion can have a detrimental impact on the pathological gambler’s life. One factor that has been considered to lead to this compulsive gambling is the loss disguised as a win (LDW). These LDWs have been shown to increase slot machine playing in numerous studies. However, their effect has not been studied in connection to Club Keno, which is also a highly prevalent game. In 2017 the Michigan lottery took in over $600 million in revenue from Club Keno (FGSAD, 2017). The present study sought to determine …

Factors Influencing The Use Of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy With Autistic Adults: A Survey Of Community Mental Health Clinicians, Brenna B. Maddox, Samantha Crabbe, Jessica Fishman, Rinad S. Beidas, Lauren Brookman-Frazee, Judith Miller, Christina Nicolaidis, David Mandell

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cognitive–behavioral therapy (CBT) can improve anxiety and depression in autistic adults, but few autistic adults receive this treatment. We examined factors that may influence clinicians’ use of CBT with autistic adults. One hundred clinicians completed an online survey. Clinicians reported stronger intentions (p = .001), more favorable attitudes (p < .001), greater normative pressure (p < .001), and higher self-efficacy (p < .001) to start CBT with non-autistic adults than with autistic adults. The only significant predictor of intentions to begin CBT with clients with anxiety or depression was clinicians’ attitudes (p < .001), with more favorable attitudes predicting stronger intentions. These findings are valuable for designing effective, tailored implementation strategies to increase clinicians’ adoption of CBT for autistic adults.

Autistic adults have high rates of anxiety and depression (Buck et al. 2014; Croen et al. 2015), and often do not receive quality mental healthcare for these or other co-occurring conditions (Maddox et al. 2019; Roux et al. 2015; Shattuck et al. …

The Use Of An Individualized Levels System And Extinction To Increase Task Compliance And To Decrease Aggressive Behavior With A Child With Autism, Savanna A. Chojnacki

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In a token economy level system, as an individual progresses from one task level to the next, there is an increase in the demand of tasks and an increase in the magnitude of reinforcers earned. The motivation for the individual in level systems stems from the increasing of value of reinforcers earned at each level. In this study a level system in concordance with an extinction procedure for aggressive behaviors was employed as a behavioral intervention. In this single-subject design study, a 5-year-old boy with autism was observed across a variety of 15 minute teaching sessions, implementing synchronously, the reinforcement …

Making A Tiger's Day: Free-Operant Assessment And Environmental Enrichment, Trista Yvonne Shrock

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Problem behaviors occur often in captive wild animals due to stress and boredom. Environmental enrichment is one of the most successful methods to help minimize these types of behaviors in many captive wild animals. The current study investigated preferences of play items and scents for seven adult Bengal tigers in a Tiger Sanctuary using a free-operant preference assessment. Two subspecies of Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris) are represented. Six of the tigers are Panthera tigris tigris and one is Panthera tigris altaica. Three phases were run on each tiger, ultimately establishing a hierarchy of preferred play items and …

The Impact Of Mother And Adolescent Offspring Distress Reduction Training On Maternal Anxiety And Alcohol Related Behaviors Following Conflict, Sarah Ann Bilsky

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nearly half of people suffering from psychopathology meet criteria for more than one disorder. Scholars have focused on understanding factors that may simultaneously maintain multiple psychiatric problems. Elevated distress during interpersonal conflict is likely to maintain both alcohol use and anxiety psychopathology. Reducing distress elicited by normative mother-adolescent conflict holds particular promise. Conflict is common in families with problematic drinking and anxiety disorders and the affective impact of parent-offspring conflict is malleable. Distress reduction skills, such as cognitive reappraisal, are effective in reducing distress during conflict. The current study examined the unique and combined effects of training mothers and adolescents …

What Are The Most Powerful Predictors Of Charitable Giving To Victims Of Typhoon Haiyan: Prosocial Traits, Socio-Demographic Variables, Or Eye Cues?, Zoi Manesi, Paul A. M. Van Lange, Niels J. Van Doesum, Thomas V. Pollet

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Major natural disasters often prompt charities to start rallying for extra donations. However, little is known about which variables predict disaster donations most strongly. Here we focused on donations to victims of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (2013). A multifaceted approach combined three potential predictors: (a) prosocial traits (social value orientation and social mindfulness, or SVO and SoMi), (b) socio-demographic variables, and (c) minimal social cues (eye images). Participants (N = 643) completed an online survey in which they decided whether or not to spend time on a fundraising task to support the typhoon victims. Results of this exploratory study …

A Comparison Of The Effects Of Sustained Silent Reading And Reciprocal Reading On Reading Motivation For Middle School Students With Reading Delays, Margaret Uwayo

Dissertations

Research suggests that secondary students with reading delays may lack reading motivation, which can be defined as the temporal reinforcement value of texts for an individual. However, reading motivation may be a critical component of their acquisition of reading proficiency. The purpose of the current study was to compare the effects of two research-based reading interventions - sustained silent reading and modified reciprocal reading - on the reading motivation of middle school students with reading delays. Participants were four 6th-grade students who were grouped into dyads in a reading intervention classroom. The primary dependent variable was book engagement under pairing …

Planning For Multiple Shopping Goals In The Marketplace, Jacob Suher, Szu-Chi Huang, Leonard Lee

Business Faculty Publications and Presentations

Four online grocery‐shopping experiments and one field study using video‐tracking technology at a grocery store document how shoppers’ motivation evolves from the beginning to the end of their shopping trips. We uncover unique motivational patterns as shoppers achieve multiple subgoals (i.e., choose multiple grocery items) to complete their trips: a monotonic decrease in motivation for shoppers with a shopping list versus a curvilinear trend (i.e., decrease then increase) in motivation for shoppers without a list. In addition, we demonstrate how to reverse the observed patterns for shoppers with a list by changing their reference points for tracking progress. The discovery …

The Use Of Vouchers To Negatively Reinforce Number Of Weeks Compliant Among Clients In A Mental Health Court, Michele Nicole Murdock

Dissertations

The literature is sparse on the use of contingency management procedures in a mental health court (MHC). The purpose of this study was to examine the use of negative reinforcement for behavioral changes in a MHC. Specifically, the present study explored whether a voucher-based contingency management intervention improved the number of weeks compliant on MHC probation and whether participants were more externally than internally motivated to comply with MHC probation requirements. Vouchers were given for compliance with MHC probation requirements. The vouchers allowed participants to miss a future court date. It was hypothesized that participants who received the voucher would …

Subtyping Stereotypy And Delineating Effective Type-Based Treatment, Katherine Therese Haggerty

Theses and Dissertations

Individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often engage in automatically reinforced stereotypic behaviors. These behaviors are often repetitive in nature, lack variability, and persist over time with no identifiable social function. This research used an adapted subtyping procedure to categorize stereotypy based on behavioral patterns in a pairwise functional analysis. Following subtyping, experimenters exposed participants to up to two treatment procedures to determine whether the subtyping procedure is predictive of the efficacy of different treatments. Results from this research showed that stereotypy can be categorized into different subtypes and that those with behaviors categorized into Subtype 1 were responsive …

Behavioral And Psychophysiological Effects Of Near-Miss Outcomes In A Game Of War, Erin Wylie

All NMU Master's Theses

Within the gambling literature, the misidentification of outcomes has been shown to affect gambling behaviors in players. A notably salient stimulus frequently cited as leading to the misidentification of wins is near-misses. Near-misses occur when the outcome of an event closely resembles a winning outcome, even though it is a loss. The current study intended to further investigate the effects of near-misses relative to wins and losses on player’s inter-trial latencies and the presence of the feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P300 event related potentials (ERPs) in a game of war card game. FRN is a negative fronto-central ERP component occurring …

An Evaluation Of A Culture Interview Checklist For Behaviorally-Oriented Clinicians, Joshua Hursel Addington

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there have been calls from within the field for behavior analysts to develop awareness of the impact of client culture on treatment. The purpose of this study was to develop and evaluate a checklist as a tool for increasing the frequency of questions about client culture asked by behavioral clinicians during mock intake interviews. A multiple baseline across question types (diet, communication and reward/discipline) was used to evaluate the effects of a vague prompt and the Culture Interview Checklist (CIC). When instructed to ask questions about culture, none of the participants increased the number of questions asked …

An Evaluation Of Behavior Analytic Jargon On Parents Of Children With Autism, Ruth Beatrice Whipple

Theses and Dissertations

Research suggests that profession specific jargon can be perceived negatively by individuals outside of that profession perhaps due to a lack of understanding. Much of the current research has focused on the social validity of utilizing technical terminology with laypersons and has shown that overall there is a preference for nontechnical terminology according to public opinion. Yet, little research has been done in the area of parent training to assess the effects of jargon on more direct measures of performance such as a parent’s accuracy with implementing a treatment procedure. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to evaluate …

Effects Of Choice On Multiplication And Division Fluency Acquisition For Third Grade Students, Terri Tammelin

All NMU Master's Theses

Students with the most pronounced behavioral needs are the ones missing the most instruction. A three-tiered system of intervention that is data driven and uses evidence based interventions is used within schools to meet the needs of all students. Within this tiered system, Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), founded in the sciences of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), are used. Of the many PBIS interventions, instructional choice at Tier I has been established as an effective, low intensity, teacher delivered support that aims to reduce challenging behaviors and increase academic engagement. Instructional choice involves two parts: selection in response to …

Training Technicians To Conduct Trial-Based Functional Analyses Via Telehealth, Kacie Mcgarry

Theses and Dissertations

Previous studies have supported the use of trial-based functional analysis performed by teachers in classroom settings. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of training technicians to conduct trial-based functional analyses via telehealth. Telehealth-based training was effective for producing high-integrity implementation by technicians and that using Trial-Based Functional Analyses in classrooms resulted in an efficient means of conducting functional analysis in areas with limited resources.

The Effects Of Performance Feedback On Behavioral Self-Monitoring, Noell Jankowski

Theses and Dissertations

Self-monitoring is a process in which an individual observes and records their own behavior. In the field of behavior analysis, there is limited research on behavioral self-monitoring (BSM) and the components that are necessary to maintain its effects. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to identify effects of implementing a feedback intervention with BSM on participants’ compliance in completing BSM tasks. Participants were three undergraduate students at a southeastern university who self-monitored their own safe driving behaviors in their personal vehicles. The independent variable was the implementation of a feedback intervention and the dependent variable was compliance with …

Behavioral Skills Training For Active Shooter Scenarios: Human Service Staff, Jacqueline Marie Noto

Theses and Dissertations

Active shooter scenarios have become increasingly prevalent in school and healthcare settings. Unfortunately, little information is available on training for active shooter scenarios when a staff member is also responsible for a client. Behavioral skills training has been shown to be an effective way to train safety skills in prior research. We found that behavioral skills training was more effective than an informational video at increasing correct responses to three different active shooter scenarios among three behavioral clinicians. These findings may impact how active shooter training is conducted.

Falling For Falsehoods: A Diet For Prevention, Wei Teck Ong, Andree Hartanto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Consuming information in a discerning manner can help us resist dubious claims.

Why And How Public Trust Matters, David Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

To build high trust cities, governments need to better understand the relationships linking people, leaders and the cities they inhabit. Behavioural scientist Professor David Chan explains the psychology of public trust.

Using Video-Based Feedback And Self-Monitoring To Improve Athletic Coaching Interactions, Kayce Lee Nagel

Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined if video-based feedback combined with self-monitoring will improve the quality of specific feedback statements delivered by coaches. The study involved four collegiate softball coaches. The primary dependent variable was the quality of coaching interactions delivered by the coaches as measured by items completed from a checklist of feedback characteristics. The coaching interaction was defined as any feedback statement that is referencing behavior relevant to task performance. The secondary dependent variable was the athlete’s performance. The independent variable was video feedback combined with self-monitoring. The results showed an improvement in all four participant’s coaching interactions. The group …

Using An Elicited Orienting Response And Respondent Conditioning To Increase Eye Contact In Response To A Name Call In Children With Autism, Nicole Adriaenssens

Theses and Dissertations

One of the earliest and most noticeable characteristics of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is impaired eye contact. Difficulty with making eye contact presents concerns for children regarding academic, social, and safety skills—for instance, failing to respond to a teacher calling a child’s name to give instructions, looking at a peer during play, or orienting toward an adult speaker warning the child of a risky situation. Currently published research on increasing responding to name with eye contact has primarily involved separate and combined procedures such as physical prompting, visual prompting, differential reinforcement, and overcorrection. The current study evaluated the …

Effects Of Progressive Ratio Schedules On Responding Following Exposure To Varying Economies, Laura Perry Senn

Theses and Dissertations

In the field of behavior analysis, access to reinforcement is generally referred to as being either an open or a closed economy. However, little research exists on the varying degrees of reinforcer exposure that may occur between the parameters of “open” and “closed.” The current study compares varying degrees of economies utilizing closed, 33% open, 66% open, and open economy conditions with three participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Prior to analysis, all participants completed an evaluation to determine whether their preferences remained stable over multiple sessions and whether they were sensitive to a satiation operation. Results are evaluated in …

The Effects Of Feedback Statements Versus Coaching Questions On Athlete Performance, Cledia Machado Caberlon

Theses and Dissertations

Coaching is a term used frequently in behavioral and non-behavioral literature, yet often with a lack of clarity on form and function. One component of coaching is feedback, which is the most common intervention in Organizational Behavior Management (OBM) and has shown to be an effective treatment when implemented correctly. However, the use of questions rather than statements to improve performance has not yet been evaluated in the coaching system. The current investigation used a coaching system to separately compare the effectiveness of both interactions (feedback statements and coaching questions) to contribute to the coaching literature. Five Mixed Martial Arts …

The Effect Of Varying Durations Of Noncontingent Access To A Preferred Item On Compliance, Ashley Patricia Shuler

Theses and Dissertations

The high-probability (high-p) sequence is frequently used to increase compliance. It involves presentation of a series of instructions with which a participant has historically complied immediately before the presentation of an instruction that has a lower probability of compliance (i.e., a low-p instruction). To date, the high-p sequence has received mixed support in the literature. Thus, researchers have begun to investigate alternatives to the sequence, one of which involves omission of the high-p instructions and noncontingent access to preferred items immediately before the delivery of the low-p instruction. In the current study, the effect of varying durations of noncontingent access …

A Meta-Analysis Of Procedures To Change Implicit Measures, Patrick S. Forscher, Calvin K. Lai, Jordan R. Ast, Charles R. Ebersole, Michelle Herman, Patricia G. Devine, Brian A. Nosek

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using a novel technique known as network meta-analysis, we synthesized evidence from 492 studies (87,418 participants) to investigate the effectiveness of procedures in changing implicit measures, which we define as response biases on implicit tasks. We also evaluated these procedures’ effects on explicit and behavioral measures. We found that implicit measures can be changed, but effects are often relatively weak (|ds| < .30). Most studies focused on producing short-term changes with brief, single-session manipulations. Procedures that associate sets of concepts, invoke goals or motivations, or tax mental resources changed implicit measures the most, whereas procedures that induced threat, affirmation, or specific moods/emotions changed implicit measures the least. Bias tests suggested that implicit effects could be inflated relative to their true population values. Procedures changed explicit measures less consistently and to a smaller degree than implicit measures and generally produced trivial changes in behavior. Finally, changes in implicit measures did not mediate changes in explicit measures or behavior. Our findings suggest that changes in implicit measures are possible, but those changes do not necessarily translate into changes in explicit measures or behavior.

An Integration-To-Bound Model Of Decision-Making That Accounts For The Spectral Properties Of Neural Data, Ramón Guevara Erra, Marco Arbotto, Aaron Schurger

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Integration-to-bound models are among the most widely used models of perceptual decision-making due to their simplicity and power in accounting for behavioral and neurophysiological data. They involve temporal integration over an input signal (“evidence”) plus Gaussian white noise. However, brain data shows that noise in the brain is long-term correlated, with a spectral density of the form 1/fα (with typically 1 < α < 2), also known as pink noise or ‘1/f’ noise. Surprisingly, the adequacy of the spectral properties of drift-diffusion models to electrophysiological data has received little attention in the literature. Here we propose a model of accumulation of evidence for decision-making that takes into consideration the spectral properties of brain signals. We develop a generalization of the leaky stochastic accumulator model using a Langevin equation whose non-linear noise term allows for varying levels of autocorrelation in the time course of the decision variable. We derive this equation directly from magnetoencephalographic data recorded while subjects performed a spontaneous movement initiation task. We then propose a nonlinear model of accumulation of evidence that accounts for the ‘1/f’ spectral properties of brain signals, and the observed variability in the power spectral properties of brain signals. Furthermore, our model outperforms the standard drift-diffusion model at approximating the empirical waiting time distribution.

Bound By Silence: Psychological Effects Of The Traditional Oath Ceremony Used In The Sex Trafficking Of Nigerian Women And Girls, Jennifer Millett-Barrett

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Nigerian women and children have been trafficked to Italy over the last 30 years for commercial sexual exploitation with an alarming increase in the past three years. The Central Mediterranean Route that runs from West African countries to Italy is rife with organized crime gangs that have created a highly successful trafficking operation. As part of the recruitment process, the Nigerian mafia and its operatives exploit victims by subjecting them to a traditional religious juju oath ceremony, which is an extremely effective control mechanism to silence victims and trap them in debt bondage. This study explores the psychological effects of …

Examining Protective Factors That Promote Resilience Among Children With An Incarcerated Parent, Celeste A. Jackson

Dissertations

Children of incarcerated parents (CIP) represent one of the most vulnerable, at-risk populations in the United States (Johnston, 1995). Best estimates suggests there are 2.7 million children with an incarcerated parents and African-American children are disproportionately represented at a figure of 1 in 9 children (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). Much of the research attempting to understand this population and guide intervention efforts has employed a deficit-based approach, highlighting the plethora of adverse risk factors and negative outcomes associated with being the child of an incarcerated parent. This approach fails to acknowledge the presence of resilience inherent in these youth. The …

Training Functional Analysis Skills With Instruction With Video Modeling And Video-Self Monitoring, Haley Ciara Hughes

Masters Theses

When developing plans to reduce a challenging behavior, Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) have an ethical obligation to first conduct a functional assessment (PECC, 2014, 3.01a), the goal of which is to identify the controlling variables for such behaviors and to use that information in training more appropriate replacement behaviors (PECC, 2014, 4.08b). It is important to train aspiring behavior analysts to implement an experimental functional analysis (FA) as it yields more accurate results than other types of functional assessment (Iwata & Dozier, 2008). Despite being considered a gold standard for training a variety of skills, behavioral skills training (BST) …