Tokens were swiftly established as conditioned re-inforcers for a large group of long-stay psychiatric patients. The method involved exchanging tokens, immediately they were received, for the back-up reinforcement. This was found to be efficient when compared to a previous study and resulted in considerably greater increases in response rates. The target behaviour was verbal participation in a social activity and the increases in participation were maintained when the exchange of tokens for back-up reinforcement was delayed. The method is especially useful for setting up token programmes.
References
1.
AyllonT.AzrinN. H. (1964). Reinforcement and instructions with mental patients. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 7: 327.
2.
BartonE. S. (1972). Operant conditioning of social speech in the severely subnormal and the use of different reinforcers. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 11: 387.
3.
HornJ.BlackW. A. M. (1973). The effect of token reinforcement on verbal participation in a social activity with long stay psychiatric patients. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 7: 185.
4.
KazdinA. E. (1973). The failure of some patients to respond to token programs. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 4: 7.
5.
KelleherR. T.GollubL. R. (1962). A review of positive conditioned reinforcement. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 5: 543.
6.
MitchellW. S.StoffelmayrB. E. (1973). Application of the Premack principle to the behavioral control of extremely inactive schizophrenics. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 6: 419.
7.
RomanczykR. G.KentR. N.DiamentC.O'LearyK. D. (1973). Measuring the reliability of observational data: a reactive process. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 6: 175.
8.
SkinnerB. F. (1963). Operant behavior. American Psychologist, 18: 503.
