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The current study used a shaping procedure to teach three preschool-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder to make eye contact with the instructor for a duration of 3 s. Then, eye contact was taught during breaks in instruction. Following the initial intervention, the frequency of reinforcement was decreased while training for generalization across instructors and locations. All three children acquired quick and sustained eye contact, which maintained after 1 month without the need for prompting. This study provides an alternative method for teaching young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder to make eye contact without the need for prompting; outlines an approach for teaching eye contact when baseline levels of eye contact are severely low and/or the child is actively avoiding eye contact; describes a successful method for thinning the schedule of reinforcement and introducing instructional demands; and recommends a practical technique for gaining attention before delivering an instructional demand.

Our goal should not be to train scientist-practitioners but rather to train science-based practitioners, that is practitioners who base their practice on scientifically solid, applied research; and when caught in a tight spot where there is no Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) research on which to depend, they base their practice on basic, scientific research, that is the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) or more realistically B. F. Skinner’s pre-JEAB research.

Identity matching-to-sample consists of matching a sample stimulus to the corresponding identical comparison stimulus from an array of comparison stimuli (Brown, Brown, & Poulson, 1995). For example, if a learner were presented with an array of stimuli such as a block, car, and spoon (the comparison stimuli), then handed a spoon (the sample stimulus), and told to match, the learner should then place that spoon next to the comparison spoon. After the learner has acquired the ability to match all of the three objects, the experimenter could assess whether he or she had also acquired generalized matching-to-sample by using three different objects, such as a plate, sock, and cup to determine if the learner could match the given sample stimulus with the correct comparison stimulus. If the learner is able to correctly match the novel stimuli, then he or she has acquired a generalized identity matching-to-sample repertoire (Brown, et al., 1995). Identity matching-to-sample has been demonstrated with various animal species such as pigeons (Cummings & Berryman, 1961; Cummings, Berryman, & Cohen, 1965; Wright, Cook, Rivera, Sands, & Delius, 1988), California sea lions (Pack, Herman, & Roitblat, 1991), bottle nosed dolphins (Herman & Gordon, 1974; Herman, Honvancik, Gory, Bradshaw, 1989), infant chimpanzees (Oden, Thompson, & Premack, 1988), and macaque monkeys (Washburn, Hopkins, & Rumbaugh, 1989; as cited by Brown et al., 1995). Not only did all of the aforementioned experimenters intend to determine whether or not the various species of animals could acquire an identical matching-to-sample repertoire, but also, would a generalized repertoire develop as well. Cumming and Berryman (1961) were unable to get generalized matching with pigeons; however, Cumming, Berryman, and Cohen (1965) got low levels of generalized matching with their pigeons, and Wright, Cook, Rivera, Sands, and Delius (1988) got high levels of generalized matching with their pigeons (as cited by Brown et al., 1995). Dolphins demonstrated generalized matching (Herman & Gordon, 1974; Herman et al., 1989), as did infant chimpanzees (Oden et al., 1988; as cited by Brown et al., 1995). Following identity matching-to-sample training, California sea lions demonstrated some generalization (Pack et al. 1991) and it is unclear if macaque monkeys acquired a generalized matching repertoire (Washburn et al., 1989; as cited by Brown et al., 1995). Children under five years of age can acquire identity matching-to-sample, but no attempt seems to have been made to assess generalization (Dixon & Dixon, 1978; Lutzer, 1987; Daehler, Lonardo, & Bukatko, 1979; as cited by Brown, et al., 1995). If a skill is going to be targeted for acquisition, it should be taught not only to mastery, but the generalization of that skill needs to be targeted as well. However, Brown, Brown, and Poulson (1995) demonstrated that three typically developing children were able to acquire generalized identity matching-to-sample. While many manuals recommend training matching-to-sample to young children with developmental disabilities (Lovaas, 1981; Taylor, & McDonough, 1996), we have not found any literature actually showing that traditional matching-to-sample can be achieved by young children with developmental disabilities. And although, Saunders and Sherman (1986) taught matching-to-sample to three developmentally delayed teenagers; and all three children demonstrated generalized matching repertoire (as cited by Brown et al., 1995) there is still a need to demonstrate not only matching-to-sample, but also generalized matching in young children with developmental delays. And while generalized matching is an interesting theoretical issue, presumably it is also of considerable practical importance, as the children will have little opportunity to use their matching skills with the specific stimulus used in training. The acquisition of an identity matching repertoire will be of little value to the child if that child has not acquired a generalized matching repertoire, so that he or she can use that skill in a variety of educational and practical contexts where the matching task involves novel, untrained stimuli. …

The three-contingency model of performance management (Malott, 1992, 1993, 1999) was used to analyze interventions in the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM) from the years 1990 through 2005 (Volume 11[1] –Volume 25[4]). The current article extends previous reviews (Malott, Shimamune, & Malott, 1992; Otto & Malott, 2004) by assessing how behavior analysts have applied this level of analysis in the description of interventions and the importance of this conceptual precision when describing maintaining variables. All 48 studies meeting criteria for inclusion in the current article involved indirect-acting contingencies with outcomes too delayed to reinforce the causal response. Only 17 of the 24 articles that described the performance-management contingencies described them correctly in terms of the maintaining behavioral mechanisms.

Skinner (1958) expressed the need for an increase in the effectiveness and efficiency of education. In particular, he suggested that programmed instruction could provide such efficiency. The present study used a within-subject design to compare the effects of four types of instructional materials; those requiring overt construction responses, overt discrimination responses, covert reading of text with highlighted key words, and covert reading of standard text. The materials requiring overt responding produced greater learning than did the covert reading materials, with or without highlighting. There was no difference found between the two types of overt responding; nor were there differences between the two types of covert reading materials. Thus, this study supports the assumption that overt responding is more effective. However, the overt response materials also required proportionately more time. Therefore, this showed no benefit of overt responding in terms of efficiency.

Based on the three-contingency model of performance management, I make the following argument: (1) Often, we fail to behave as we should because the natural contingencies supporting appropriate behavior are ineffective; the natural contingencies involve outcomes for each individual response that are either too small, though of cumulative significance, or outcomes that are too improbable. The delay of the outcome is essentially irrelevant. The psychodynamic model of the cognitive motivational theorists provides a poor explanation for why we fail to behave as we should. (2) The performance-management contingencies in organizational behavior management (OBM) must usually involve deadline-induced aversive control, even when they are based on powerful reinforcers. Furthermore, such performance management succeeds only to the extent that the person's behavioral history, “Jewish mother,” has inculcated an appropriate value system. Wiegand and Geller's critique of the necessity of the use of aversive con...

This article reviews the negative behavior-analytic commentary on Drash and Tudor's behavior-analytic analysis of the etiology of autistic repertoires and values. This article also asks that, in our effort to scrub it clean, we not drown Drash and Tudor's beautiful, but fragile, new-born, behavior-analytic baby in hyper-methodological, hyper-scholarly bathwater.

Behavior analysts can and should but rarely do account for the ontogenic continuity of behavior, thus leaving the field open to the reified, biological-deterministic traits of personality theorists. This comment is in reaction to: Roberts, B. W. (2002) “Organizational behavior management and personality psychology: Reunited and it feels so good?” Journal of Organizational Behavior Management, 22(2).

This critique of Goltz and Hietapelto's operant model of power suggests: • The definition of power and leadership are too narrow. • Powerful leaders rarely manage performance through operant contingencies. • The opportunity to manage the behavior of others is rarely the reinforcer controlling the behavior of the powerful. • The aversiveness of control by the powerful is rarely the basis for resistance to organizational change. • Much behavior-analytic extrapolation from the Skinner box is unwarranted. • Much behavior-analytic theorizing is uncomfortably close to the hypothetico-deductive theorizing about which Skinner warned us.

Do not make these erroneous, simplistic assumptions: (1) Psychological phenomena need non-Skinner-box concepts for their understanding; (2) All natural and performance-management contingencies are the direct-acting contingencies of the Skinner box; (3) The delayed delivery of a reinforcer is reinforcement; and (4) A contingency will be ineffective, if it involves a delayed outcome. Delayed-outcome performance-management contingencies can be effective, if their outcomes are sufficiently sizeable and probable, if they involve deadlines (in the case of performance maintenance contingencies), and if the performer knows the rule describing the contingency. The main function of rules describing delayed-outcome performance-management contingencies is their creation of noncompliance as an aversive condition. The performer then escapes or attenuates the aversive condition by complying with the rule. However, the aversiveness of noncompliance is a function of our preschool behavioral history. For example, ...

Olson, Laraway, and Austin (2001) propose an increased emphasis on the establishing operation in organizational behavior management. Their proposal raises interesting questions about theory, science, and practice. (1) What should be the role of theory in behavior analysis? (2) Should we try to find problems that match our solutions or vice versa ? (3) What is the relative importance of the establishing operation and the performance-management contingency in managing organizational behavior? (4) Should theory and basic research be more informed by the issues raised in applied settings?