Effects of reinforcer duration on the response behavior of preterm 2-year-olds in visual reinforcement audiometry.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of reinforcer duration (0.5, 1.5, and 4.0 sec) on response behavior to a 50-dB HL complex noise bandpass signal in visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA). Sixty preterm 2-year-olds (corrected age 24-30 mo) met the selection criteria and were used as subjects. Data indicated that decreasing the duration of a subject's exposure to the visual reinforcer resulted in more responses, with significantly slower habituation rates presented by subjects receiving brief (0.5 sec) versus long (4.0 sec) reinforcer duration. These results suggest that audiologists may increase the amount of audiometric information obtained from children in the upper age bracket of VRA by decreasing their exposure to the visual reinforcer.