Adventitious Reinforcement of Maladaptive Stimulus Control Interferes with Learning

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Psychology
• Applied Behavior Analysis
• Developmental Disabilities

Background:

• Persistent error patterns can emerge during skill acquisition, particularly in individuals with intellectual disabilities.
• These errors can be inadvertently reinforced, leading to maladaptive behaviors that interfere with learning.
• Such patterns can disrupt previously learned skills when errors re-emerge during new teaching procedures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To illustrate how adventitious reinforcement can establish and maintain error patterns during discrimination training.
• To demonstrate the impact of these error patterns on learning and previously acquired skills.
• To present an effective modification of a teaching procedure to overcome these challenges.

Main Methods:

• A size-fading procedure was used to teach a simple simultaneous discrimination to a boy with intellectual disabilities.
• The initial procedure involved increasing the incorrect stimulus size in 10% increments.
• The procedure was refined with smaller fading steps (5%) and more frequent adjustments based on performance.

Main Results:

• Initial training led to a significant increase in errors and re-emergence of a switching behavior pattern when the incorrect stimulus reached full size.
• The established error pattern interfered with the discrimination task, despite prior success with smaller fading steps.
• The refined teaching program, with smaller steps and more frequent feedback, successfully eliminated errors and switching behavior, leading to discrimination mastery.

Conclusions:

• Careful instructional design is crucial to prevent the adventitious reinforcement of maladaptive behaviors during learning.
• Reducing errors during the acquisition phase is key to preventing the development of persistent error patterns.
• Modifying teaching procedures, such as using smaller fading steps and frequent performance monitoring, can effectively address and overcome these learning challenges.