Selecting effective intervention strategies for escape-maintained academic-performance problems: Consider giving 'em...

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Special Education

Background:

• Academic responding in elementary students can be influenced by escape contingencies.
• Understanding the function of behavior is crucial for effective intervention design.
• Negative reinforcement plays a significant role in maintaining academic behaviors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the effectiveness of consequence- and antecedent-based strategies for improving math computation fluency.
• To identify which treatments or combinations best enhance fluency in students with escape-motivated behavior.
• To investigate the impact of different reinforcement procedures and task choice on academic performance.

Main Methods:

• Functional analyses were conducted to identify students with escape-controlled academic responding.
• A multielement design was employed to assess four distinct treatments.
• Treatments included Differential Reinforcement of Alternative Behavior (DRA), Non-contingent Reinforcement (NCR), task choice, and a combination of task choice and DRA.

Main Results:

• All four tested treatments led to an increased rate of correct digits per minute for all participants.
• Individual students demonstrated varied responses to the different interventions, highlighting differential effects.
• Task choice, when combined with DRA, showed promising results, though individual responses varied.

Conclusions:

• Interventions for escape-motivated behavior in academic settings should be individualized.
• Both antecedent (task choice) and consequence-based (reinforcement) strategies can improve math fluency.
• Further research is needed to determine the optimal combination of treatments for specific student profiles.