Weeks M, Gaylord-Ross R
J Appl Behav Anal. 1981 Winter;14(4):449-63. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1981.14-449.
The influence of task difficulty on aberrant behavior was investigated with three severely handicapped students. Noticeably higher rates of problem behavior occurred in demand compared to no-demand conditions. In addition, there were higher rates of problem behaviors on difficult versus easy tasks. Both these findings were validated with visual discrimination and perceptual motor tasks. An errorless learning procedure effectively minimized errors and aberrant behavior in visual discrimination tasks but not in perceptual motor tasks. It was conceptualized that aberrant behavior was maintained by negative reinforcement contingencies. Difficult tasks were aversive to the children, who emitted aberrant responses to escape or avoid such tasks. By contrast, conditions in which no demands were made, easy tasks, and, in visual discrimination learning, errorless tasks, were less aversive and resulted in little or no problem behavior. Implications for reducing maladaptive behaviors through curricular modifications are discussed and contrasted to more traditional consequence manipulation approaches.
研究人员以三名重度残疾学生为对象，调查了任务难度对异常行为的影响。与无要求条件相比，在有要求的情况下，问题行为的发生率明显更高。此外，在难度较大的任务与简单任务中，问题行为的发生率也更高。这两项发现都通过视觉辨别和感知运动任务得到了验证。一种无错误学习程序有效地减少了视觉辨别任务中的错误和异常行为，但在感知运动任务中却没有效果。研究认为，异常行为是由负强化偶发事件维持的。困难的任务对孩子们来说是厌恶的，他们会做出异常反应以逃避此类任务。相比之下，无要求的条件、简单任务以及在视觉辨别学习中的无错误任务，不那么令人厌恶，导致很少或没有问题行为。文中讨论了通过课程修改减少适应不良行为的意义，并将其与更传统的后果操纵方法进行了对比。
