2004 |
Deleon, Iser |
R03Activity Code Description: To provide research support specifically limited in time and amount for studies in categorical program areas. Small grants provide flexibility for initiating studies which are generally for preliminary short-term projects and are non-renewable. |
Establishment and Durability of Reinforcing Stimuli @ Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger
[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The identification and use of reinforcing stimuli is a critical component in the education and treatment of individuals with severe and profound cognitive impairments. Over the past twenty years, researchers have developed sophisticated means of identifying reinforcers for these individuals. This literature also reveals that reinforcer value changes over time. Decrements in reinforcer effectiveness can result in the deterioration of interventions that are dependent on positive reinforcement, making it important to understand the variables that can influence the value and durability of reinforcers. Observations from our pilot research suggest that (1) the inclusion of stimuli as reinforcers in response-reinforcer contigencies can enhance or sustain the value of stimuli, and (2) gradual increases in the amount of effort required to earn a reinforcer can enhance its value relative to stimuli that are earned with less effort. This set of observations suggests that response-reinforcer contingency arrangements can be used to enhance the value of reinforcers, sustain the value of reinforcers, and possibly, to establish neutral stimuli as new reinforcers. These propositions will be tested in the present study. In Experiment 1, the effects of contingent delivery, [unreadable] contingent delivery with gradually increasing response requirements, and noncontingent delivery of stimuli on changes in the value of reinforcing stimuli will be evaluated in an effort to replicate our pilot findings. The aims of Experiment 2 are to compare the enhancement of reinforcer potency through these means with two conventional alternative means of enhancing stimulus value (respondent conditioning of neutral stimuli through stimulus-stimulus pairing and reinforced engagement of neutral stimuli). Finally, the utility of these methods in establishing therapeutically effective reinforcers will be evaluated by determining whether stimuli that are initially ineffective in displacing severe destructive behavior (e.g., self-injury) in the target population, can be used effectively in this manner following exposure to the value enhancement procedures. [unreadable] [unreadable]
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0.901 |
2006 — 2008 |
Deleon, Iser |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Behavioral Economics in Mrdd and Behavior Disorders @ Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger
[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Behavioral assessments of severe behavior disorders of children with developmental disabilities have revealed that behavioral problems are often maintained by their functional outcomes (or reinforcers). For example, children may gain caregiver attention or escape from instructional demands via their problem behavior. Behavioral interventions built upon this framework comprise the current standard of psychological care. These interventions typically involve teaching or otherwise promoting appropriate, alternative behaviors that produce identical or similar reinforcers as the problem behavior, thereby obviating the need for the child to engage in the aberrant behavior. Numerous studies have validated the effectiveness of these interventions under initial conditions, but others have revealed that their therapeutic effects sometimes diminish as the ratio of responses to reinforcers is increased (or "thinned") to make the interventions practical in natural environments (e.g., classrooms). Principles from the field of behavioral economics can help to determine the conditions under which behavioral interventions can be expected to maintain their effects across changes in reinforcement delivery schedules. Specifically, the behavioral economic concepts of substitutability and demand elasticity have revealed that demand for a commodity (in behavioral terms, choosing one reinforcer over concurrently available reinforcers) is a joint function of its cost (the number of responses required to produce that reinforcer) and the degree to which concurrently available commodities are more substitutable. The implication of these findings for behavioral interventions is that problem behaviors may be more likely to reemerge as schedule thinning progresses when the available alternatives are functionally similar. These principles thus suggest, paradoxically, that the provision of the same or similar outcome contingent upon an alternative behavior may not always be the best therapeutic option in treating behavior disorders. In the current proposal, two studies will extend out pilot data demonstrating how behavioral economic principles can be brought to bear on the orderly choice responding of individuals with developmental disabilities. Two subsequent experiments will employ these same principles to determine the conditions under which behavioral interventions based on providing reinforcers that are functional dissimilar to those historically produced by behavior problems may be expected to have superior clinical effects than interventions based on providing functionally similar outcomes. [unreadable] [unreadable]
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0.901 |
2007 — 2008 |
Deleon, Iser |
R21Activity Code Description: To encourage the development of new research activities in categorical program areas. (Support generally is restricted in level of support and in time.) |
Translational Research On Ncr Interventions For Behavior Disorders @ Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger
[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The current standard of care in the treatment of the severe behavior disorders of individuals with developmental disabilities relies on (1) identifying the environmental variables that give rise to and maintain (reinforce) the problem behavior and (2) arranging for the relevant reinforcers to be delivered in a manner that displaces their procurement through problem behavior. Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) is a therapeutic arrangement, based on this model, in which the reinforcer hypothesized to maintain a problem behavior is delivered on a response-independent, time-based schedule. This form of intervention has grown increasingly popular over the past decade, its popularity largely driven by its ease of implementation relative to other common interventions and demonstrated effectiveness in decreasing problem behavior during protracted evaluations and under limited circumstances. However, NCR may have unknown detrimental effects under arrangements that go beyond the typical treatment evaluation, often predicted by research on basic behavioral process that has yet to fully come into contact with the treatment literature. This proposal describes an exploratory, translational project designed to evaluate the impact of these basic behavioral processes (behavioral momentum, hedonic constrast, and behavioral reinstatement) on interventions built upon the noncontingent delivery of reinforcers. Specific studies will determine the extent to which NCR enhances the resistance of problem to other forms of intervention, produces an increae in levels of problem behavior in non- treatment settings, and reinstates probelm behavior that had previously been reduced through other forms of intervention. These questions will be answered through a series of comparative treatment evaluations in which the effects of NCR will be compared with the effects of parallel interventions that rely on the contingent reinforcer delivery or more simply, the absence of free reinforcement. The proposed studies will form the basis of a larger objective to determine the optimal therapeutic arrangements for this and related interventions. Thus, the outcomes have significant potential to impact treatment selection for individuals that display severe behavior disorders. 7. Project Narrative Noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) is an increasingly common intervention for the severe behavior disorders of individuals with developmental disabilities. However, certain basic behavioral processes, yet to be examined in a clinical context, predict that NCR may increase behavior problems when it is not being directly implemented or may weaken the effects of other interventions. This project will determine the extent to these side effects occur as a first step towards determining how they can be avoided. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]
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0.901 |
2009 — 2013 |
Deleon, Iser |
P01Activity Code Description: For the support of a broadly based, multidisciplinary, often long-term research program which has a specific major objective or a basic theme. A program project generally involves the organized efforts of relatively large groups, members of which are conducting research projects designed to elucidate the various aspects or components of this objective. Each research project is usually under the leadership of an established investigator. The grant can provide support for certain basic resources used by these groups in the program, including clinical components, the sharing of which facilitates the total research effort. A program project is directed toward a range of problems having a central research focus, in contrast to the usually narrower thrust of the traditional research project. Each project supported through this mechanism should contribute or be directly related to the common theme of the total research effort. These scientifically meritorious projects should demonstrate an essential element of unity and interdependence, i.e., a system of research activities and projects directed toward a well-defined research program goal. |
Behavioral Economics and Analysis of Chronic Aberrant Behavior (Cab) @ Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger
The functional analysis model of intervention for CAB relies on identification of the environment-behavior relations that support CAB, then re-arranging the environment in a manner that favors appropriate replacement behaviors over problem behaviors. Typical interventions can be understood as concurrent- schedule arrangements that are most effective when CAB is entirely on extinction (no longer produces the relevant reinforcer), while appropriate alternatives are reinforced continuously. These optimal treatment arrangements, however, are often impractical or othenwise unfeasible in natural environments, perhaps ultimately accounting for some proportion of treatment failure or relapse. The studies in the Project 2 assume as starting points either a) the conditions under which previously effective treatments deteriorate through an unfavorable distribution of reinforcers for CAB vs. alternative behavior, or b) the conditions leading to this form of treatment deterioration. The project then imports strategies borrowed from two interrelated areas of basic research to enhance behavioral interventions under these conditions. From the first area, behavioral economics, the principles of stimulus substitutability and elasticity of demand are combined with behavioral concepts of motivation to arrange conditions that re-establish the predominance of the replacement behaviors. The second line of basic research suggests that, all else being equal, stimuli historically associated with greater effort become valued over stimuli historically associated with lesser effort. The related experiments will first extend this phenomenon to the reinforcers themselves, and then apply the same principles in clinical contexts to establish a bias towards reinforcers that support replacement behaviors. The overall aim is to translate these basic principles into procedures that can either rehabilitate interventions under conditions in which their effects have deteriorated or inoculate interventions prior to deterioration.
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0.901 |
2010 — 2013 |
Deleon, Iser |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Behavioral Economics in Mr/Dd and Behavior Disorders @ Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Assessments of severe behavior disorders of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have revealed that behavior problems are often maintained by their functional outcomes (or reinforcers). For example, children may gain caregiver attention or escape instructional demands via their problem behavior. Behavioral interventions built upon this framework comprise the current standard of psychological care. These interventions typically involve teaching or otherwise promoting appropriate, alternative behaviors that produce identical or similar reinforcers as the problem behavior, to displace the problem behavior. Numerous studies have validated the effectiveness of these interventions under initial conditions, but others have revealed that their therapeutic effects sometimes wane as the ratio of responses to reinforcers is increased (or "thinned") to make the interventions practical in natural environments (e.g., classrooms). We previously proposed that principles from the field of behavioral economics, including stimulus substitutability and demand elasticity, can help to determine the conditions under which behavioral interventions may be expected to maintain their effects across changes in intervention schedules. In the initial budget period, we conducted investigations that demonstrated that a) the choice behavior of children with IDD and behavior disorders is systematically sensitive to behavioral economic manipulations involving stimulus substitutability and demand elasticity, and b) behavioral interventions based on these principles can often produce clinical effects that are more durable than what is often prescribed under the current standard of care. In the current proposal, we again adopt a translational approach to extend our analysis of behavioral economic principles, and their relevance to problem behavior, through both laboratory and clinical investigations. Six studies are proposed that a) further explore concepts of substitutability and demand elasticity to enhance treatment effects, b) employ concepts related to open vs. closed economies to both understand the influence of extraneous sources of reinforcement on response allocation and decrease motivation for problem behavior, and c) employ concepts related to "penalty" and "interest" to model how response allocation can be shifted away from problem behavior and towards appropriate behavior. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The current investigation aims to use concepts and principles of behavioral economics to enhance the practicality, durability, and efficacy of interventions for the severe behavior disorders of children with developmental disabilities.
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0.901 |