Ariane Holcombe

Constant time delay with discrete responses: A review of effectiveness and demographic, procedural, and methodological parameters☆

Constant time delay, a variation of progressive time delay, is a response prompting strategy designed to provide and remove prompts in a systematic manner on a time dimension. Constant time delay has two defining characteristics: (a) initial trials involve presentation of the target stimulus followed immediately by delivery of a controlling prompt; and (b) on all subsequent trials, the target stimulus is presented, a response interval of a fixed duration is delivered, the controlling prompt is provided, and a second response interval is delivered as needed. Reports of 36 studies using the constant time delay procedure with discrete behaviors were identified and analyzed. The results are described in terms of demographic variables (i.e., the types of subjects, settings, behaviors, instructors, and instructional arrangements), and the procedural parameters of the strategy. The effectiveness of the strategy and the outcome measures are summarized. Finally, the methodological adequacy of the constant time delay research is examined. Implications for practice and for further research are presented.

Comparative Single-Subject Research Description of Designs and Discussion of Problems

This article describes four single-subject research designs used to make comparisons between two or more interventions (independent variables). These include the multitreatment design, alternating treatments design, adapted alternating treatments design, and parallel treatments design. Three problems faced in using these designs are described: multitreatment interference, the nonreversibility of some socially important behaviors, and the need to separate the effects of each treatment. The ways in which these research designs address the problems inherent in comparative research are discussed, as are issues related to conducting comparative research.

Instructive feedback: Review of parameters and effects

We present a review of the existing research on instructive feedback. Instructive feedback is a method of presenting extra, non-target stimuli in the consequent events of instructional trials (e.g., during praise statements). Students are not required to respond to those additional stimuli and are not reinforced if they do. The research is reviewed in terms of the characteristics of participants involved, the settings and instructional variables used, and the findings that emerged. The findings indicate that a wide range of students by age and disability were included and that most studies occurred in special education contexts. When used with response prompting procedures in a variety of direct instructional arrangements, students acquire and maintain some of the instructive feedback stimuli. Thus, teachers are encouraged to use instructive feedback in their direct instructional activities. Areas of future research include using instructive feedback in new contexts and examining methods for presenting instructive feedback. In addition, the use of instructive feedback to influence future learning and stimulus class formation should be investigated.

Effects of two levels of procedural fidelity with constant time delay on children's learning

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of constant time delay delivered with high procedural fidelity to constant time delay with high procedural fidelity on all variables except delivery of the controlling prompt (i.e., on a mean of 44% of the trials, the controlling prompt was not delivered when it should have been provided). Six preschool children with disabilities were taught to identify photographs in two alternating conditions (e.g., high procedural fidelity and low procedural fidelity). An adapted alternating treatments design was used to evaluate the instructional conditions on the effectiveness and efficiency of instruction. In addition, daily measures were taken of the teachers implementation of each step of the constant time delay procedures which indicated that the two conditions were implemented as planned. The results indicate that both conditions were effective for four children; for three of these, the high procedural fidelity condition resulted in more efficient learning. For the fifth child, the high-fidelity condition resulted in criterion level responding, but the low fidelity condition did not. However, when the high fidelity procedure and trial-by-trial reinforcement were used for the low-fidelity stimuli, these also were acquired. For the sixth child, neither procedure was effective; thus, the high fidelity condition was used alone and resulted in learning. The results are discussed in terms of using the constant time delay procedure and studying the procedural fidelity of other strategies.

Observational assessment of young children's social behavior with peers

Understanding the social goals of young children during interaction with peers and the behavioral strategies they select to achieve those goals has both theoretical and practical implications. A convergence across theoretical and conceptual frameworks supports the development of a new generation of observational methodology designed to assess social goals and behavioral strategies of young children. The purposes of this article are to describe the role of observational research in the assessment of childrens peer-related social competence; examine the conceptual frameworks that serve as a foundation for observational assessment of young childrens social goals and behavioral strategies; describe the technological advances that allow more descriptive, precise, and complex behavioral codes for observational assessment and data analysis; provide an example of an observational system that assesses childrens social goals and behavioral strategies; and identify the practical implications of studying young childrens social goals and behavioral strategies.

Teaching preschoolers to avoid abduction by strangers: Evaluation of maintenance strategies

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of effective training procedures for teaching preschoolers to avoid abduction by strangers and to evaluate strategies to promote maintenance of the acquired skills. The study was conducted in three Head Start classrooms with a total of 46 children. A multiple probe design across groups within each class and replicated across the three classrooms was used to evaluate two strategies for promoting maintenance: (a) monthly reviews involving verbal rehearsal, modeling, and feedback; and (b) monthly reviews involving verbal rehearsal, modeling, feedback, and in-class role play. The findings of the study indicate: (a) classroom teachers implemented the training procedures with a high degree of procedural fidelity, (b) all children were taught to resist the lures of strangers, (c) children maintained the critical abduction avoidance behavior (moving away from a stranger) while the maintenance promotion strategies were used, and (d) minimal differences were noted in the effectiveness of the two maintenance promotion strategies for the critical abduction avoidance behavior.

Effects of Instructive Feedback on Future Learning.

This study evaluated the effects of presenting instructive feedback for current target behaviors when teaching preschoolers in dyads to name four stimulus variations. Behaviors for each of the four types of stimuli were divided into two sets and instructed sequentially with a 3-second constant time delay procedure. During instruction, correct responses to one set of behaviors received a token, verbal praise, and presentation and verbal description of the future target stimuli in one daily session. In the other daily session, correct responses received only tokens and verbal praise. A parallel treatments design (Gast & Wolery, 1988) was used to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of the two conditions. Results indicate that: (a) three of the four children learned all future behaviors, (b) presentation of instructive feedback did not interfere with learning, and (c) in terms of direct instruction time required by the teacher, future behaviors were acquired more efficiently.

Employment of Educators in Preschool Mainstreaming: A Survey of General Early Educators

This report describes a mail survey designed (a) to identify the extent to which various types of educators (paraprofessionals, early childhood educators, elementary school educators, and special educators) were employed in early education programs, and (b) to describe patterns in that employment Respondents represented a variety of programs (Head Start, public school prekindergarten, public school kindergarten, and community preschool/child care) and were selected randomly from the nine U.S. Bureau of the Census regions. The results indicate that (a) higher percentages of programs employed full-time rather than pan-time paraprofesslonal and professional staff; (b) higher percentages of Head Start programs employed paraprofessionals, particularly Child-Development-Associate-degree staff, than did other program types, and the lowest percentage of employment of paraprofessionals occurred in public school kindergarten programs; (c) more mainstreamed programs employed paraprofessionals than did nonmainstreamed programs, but the differences were slight; (d) higher percentages of programs employed bachelors-degree teachers; (e) nearly equal percentages of programs employed elementary teachers as employed early childhood teachers, and fewer programs employed special education teachers; and (f) about three fourths of the main-streamed programs did not employ special education teachers.

Instructive feedback: A comparison of simultaneous and alternating presentation of non-target stimuli

Instructive feedback involves presenting extra, non-target stimuli in the consequent events for childrens responses. Two methods of presenting instructive feedback during direct instruction were compared. These methods involved presenting two extra stimuli on all trials, and presenting the two extra stimuli separately on alternating trials. Preschool students were taught coin combinations using a constant time delay procedure with instructive feedback stimuli added to both praise and correction statements. An adapted alternating treatments design was used to evaluate the two methods of presenting instructive feedback. The students were assessed to determine the extent to which instructive feedback stimuli were learned. The results indicate that students learned some of the instructive feedback stimuli and no consistent differences in the effectiveness of the two presentation methods were noted. Further, relationships between the two instructive feedback stimuli appeared to be established. Implications for instruction and future research are discussed.

Using constant time delay to teach self-feeding to young students with severe/profound handicaps: Evidence of limited effectiveness

This paper describes an investigation to determine the effectiveness of a constant time-delay procedure used in a total task format to teach chained self-feeding skills to two preschool children with severe handicaps. Training was conducted during snacktime using a 3-sec delay interval with a controlling prompt of physical guidance. Both children learned spoon use; in addition, one child learned cup use. These behaviours maintained over time. Although there was not adequate time to teach additional behaviors to establish experimental control, results indicate that the constant time-delay procedure merits further investigation as an effective means of teaching self-feeding tasks.