Determining the reinforcing value of social consequences and establishing social consequences as reinforcers.

摘要

A reinforcer assessment of social consequences was conducted to determine the pre-pairing reinforcing value of two social stimuli, praise and back pats. A pairing procedure and an SD procedure were evaluated to determine which, if either, would effectively condition social consequences as effective reinforcers. One child with autism participated in the study. It was determined that prior to conditioning neither social stimulus functioned as a reinforcer. Social consequences were not effectively conditioned as reinforcers using the pairing procedure, however praise and back pats may have been conditioned as weak reinforcers using the SD procedure.