Self-Control Responding in Children with Developmental Delays: Analog Assessment of Subjective Value of High and Low Preferred Stimuli

2012

Previous research suggests that both non-human animals and humans are likely to engage in impulsive responding when provided with opportunities to choose between responses that are correlated with smaller, sooner consequences and larger, later consequences. Much of the research that demonstrates this phenomenon has been conducted in analog settings and/or with hypothetical choices, and the generality of those findings remains unknown. In the current study, we assessed impulsive responding in four children with developmental disabilities by evaluating the conditions under which preferences might shift in the context of actual choice scenarios for established reinforcers. First, we demonstrated that (a) highly preferred (HP) and relatively less preferred (LP) stimuli both maintained task selection and (b) responding was allocated toward the task associated with the more highly preferred stimulus when both stimuli were concurrently available over various delay intervals

Self-Control, Delayed Reinforcement, Impulsive Behavior

Conference presentations and posters presented

Professionals, Students

[email protected]

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