Stability of preference and reinforcing efficacy of edible, leisure, and social attention stimuli.

Behavior analysts have developed an extensive technology of assessing preferences, but little research has evaluated the extent to which preferences change over time. In this study, monthly paired-stimulus edible, leisure, and social preference assessments and bimonthly reinforcer assessments were conducted over a 1-year period with 4 individuals with developmental disabilities. Across participants, short-term (i.e., month to month) preference was most stable for edible items (average Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient = 0.79) and less stable for leisure items (average = 0.66) and social stimuli (average = 0.50). Long-term stability of preference was evaluated by comparing the first preference assessment to the final assessment, 12 months later. Across participants, average Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients were 0.63 for edible items, 0.33 for social stimuli, and 0.19 for leisure items. For all participants, edible items were associated with the highest response rates during reinforcer assessments. Suggestions for determining the frequency of conducting preference and reinforcer assessments are discussed.