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FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE AND CONCURRENT SCHEDULE RESPONDING: TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF RESPONSE COVARIATION IN PRESCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN
Abstract
Support has increased for employing an ecological rather than a sequential model for the assessment of behavior change in applied settings. A major impetus for this change has been increased reports of simultaneous changes in nontreated behaviors following the application of interventions to a single response. The purpose of the present investigation was twofold. First, an integrative model for concomitant behavior change was developed based upon: (a) the functional equivalence of behavior; (b) the discriminative properties of reward; and (c) the nature of responding under concurrent schedules of reinforcement. Second, this model was put to empirical test in a simplified behavior-environment setting to determine the model's predictive validity. Each day for 15 minutes during morning free play, four preschool-age subjects engaged in two activities. During the first five minutes of the experimental period, subjects were asked to place either checkers or letters into two paper bags that were provided. During the final ten minutes of the experimental period, subjects were allowed to work on design sheets composed of various geometric shapes of standard size either by pasting over the matching shape, or by coloring the shapes with crayons. Following baseline, two forms of reward were made available to the subjects under identical and concurrent schedules. Half of the subjects received additional information during training about the discriminative properties of withholding reward for the target response. After concurrent schedule training, reward for collecting letters only was withheld for all subjects and changes in frequencies of the other three response alternatives were monitored. Results of the present investigation provided partial support for the hypotheses under investigation. Specifically, collateral changes occurred in the behavior that was functionally equivalent to the target response while inverse changes occurred in behaviors which were functionally different from the targeted response for the group that received additional information during training. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for a systems level approach to behavioral intervention.
Subject Area
Educational psychology
Recommended Citation
MARTENS, BRIAN KEVIN, "FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE AND CONCURRENT SCHEDULE RESPONDING: TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF RESPONSE COVARIATION IN PRESCHOOL-AGE CHILDREN" (1985). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8606966.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8606966