Effect of peer administered consequences upon articulatory responses of speech-defective children

Twenty second-grade lisping children were taught to articulate /s/ and /z/ correctly during three training sessions. Two weeks later, each child was asked to invite three classmates to a fourth session in which the classmates could earn tokens contingent upon the target child's correct articulation of /s/ and /z/ sounds. A response cost procedure was initiated with one group of 10 target children and the invited peers. In addition to tokens given for correct responses, tokens were removed following each of the target child's incorrect /s/ or /z/ responses. This condition resulted in the presentation of aversive consequences as well as helpful comments from the peers administered to the target child. Response cost procedures were not used with the remaining group of 10 target children and peers. Comparison of correct versus incorrect responses in each group revealed target children in the response cost group produced significantly more correct /s/ or /z/ sounds than those in the group receiving only reinforcement. Possible reasons to explain this finding and advisability of using response cost procedures with peers are discussed.