Advisor(s)
D. Daniel Gould
Contributor(s)
Karen E. Gould, Pamela M. Olsen
Date of Award
2010
Date Accepted
8-2010
Degree Grantor
Northeastern University
Degree Level
M.S.
Degree Name
Master of Science
Department or Academic Unit
Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology.
Keywords
behavioral sciences, autism, conditioned reinforcer, social reinforcer
Subject Categories
Autistic children, Praise - Case studies
Disciplines
Child Psychology
Abstract
Social consequences, such as praise, do not function as reinforcers for many individuals with autism. The current study replicated the procedures of Gibson (2009) in order to condition 2 social stimuli, verbal praise and thumbs up, as reinforcers for a 3-year-old boy with autism. Two procedures, stimulus-stimulus pairing and a discriminative stimulus procedure, were evaluated. The stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure involved delivering the to-be-conditioned stimulus and immediately following it with a known reinforcer. The discriminative stimulus procedure involved establishing the to-be-conditioned stimulus as discriminative for a response that produced the same known reinforcer. Results indicated that the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure was ineffective, while the discriminative stimulus procedure effectively conditioned both social stimuli as reinforcers.
Document Type
Master's Thesis
Rights Holder
Catherine R. Hinckley
Permanent URL
Recommended Citation
Hinckley, Catherine R., "Determining the reinforcing value of social consequences and establishing social consequences as reinforcers: a replication" (2010). Applied Behavioral Analysis Master's Theses. Paper 25. http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20000288
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