Cihon Joseph H, Ferguson Julia L, Milne Christine M, Leaf Justin B, McEachin John, Leaf Ron
1Autism Partnership Foundation, 200 Marina Dr., Seal Beach, CA 90740 USA.
2The Institute for Behavioral Studies, Endicott College, Beverly, MA USA.
Behav Anal Pract. 2018 Dec 7;12(3):548-556. doi: 10.1007/s40617-018-00316-3. eCollection 2019 Sep.
Token systems often involve a predetermined number of tokens required prior to exchange for a terminal reinforcer. The effectiveness of token systems implemented in this manner has been well documented within the literature; however, some have discussed the possibility of a fixed earning requirement creating a context in which the learner no longer emits the desired behavior once the terminal number is achieved. A possible alternative to a fixed earning requirement is selecting the earning requirement based upon learner responding and leaving the requirement unknown to the learner until the moment of exchange. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a token system with a flexible earning requirement to increase the frequency of comments during snack for 3 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The results of a nonconcurrent multiple-baseline design demonstrated the flexible token system was effective at increasing the rate of comments in addition to the cumulative number of novel comments.
代币系统通常涉及在兑换最终强化物之前所需的预定数量的代币。以这种方式实施的代币系统的有效性在文献中已有充分记载；然而，一些人讨论了固定赚取要求可能会创造一种情境，即一旦达到最终数量，学习者就不再表现出期望的行为。固定赚取要求的一种可能替代方案是根据学习者的反应来选择赚取要求，并在兑换之前不让学习者知道该要求。本研究的目的是评估一种具有灵活赚取要求的代币系统对增加3名被诊断为自闭症谱系障碍的儿童在吃零食时发表评论的频率的有效性。非同期多基线设计的结果表明，灵活的代币系统除了能增加新颖评论的累积数量外，还能有效提高评论率。
