Punishment contingencies for the reduction of incorrect responses during articulation instruction

A comparison was made between the effects of punishment combined with positive reinforcement and reinforcement alone for the reduction of incorrect articulation responses. Three different punishers (a buzzer, response cost, and "No!") were studied for six young children while they were receiving programmed articulation instruction. The results indicated (1) that punishment in combination with positive reinforcement was generally more effective than positive reinforcement alone; (2) that whether or not a particular stimulus acted as a punisher could be determined only be empirical demonstration; and (3) that the introduction of punishment contingencies did not produce increased rates of disruptive, off-task behaviors. Conversely, off-task behaviors tended to increase in rate when punishement contingencies for articulation responses were removed.