M3 Research and Literature
85
JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 2000, 33, 85–88 NUMBER 1 (SPRING 2000)
THE EFFECTS OF ESTABLISHING OPERATIONS ON PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT OUTCOMES
JENNIFER M. GOTTSCHALK
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
MYRNA E. LIBBY
NEW ENGLAND CENTER FOR CHILDREN
E. K. SHRIVER CENTER FOR MENTAL RETARDATION
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
AND
RICHARD B. GRAFF
THE NEW ENGLAND CENTER FOR CHILDREN
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
Preference assessments were conducted for 4 individuals with developmental disabilities across conditions of (a) control, allowing equal access to all stimuli prior to the preference assessment; (b) deprivation, allowing no access to one stimulus for 48 hr prior to the assessment; and (c) satiation, allowing free access to one stimulus for 10 min immediately prior to the assessment. Deprivation resulted in increased preference, whereas satiation resulted in decreased preference compared to control conditions.
DESCRIPTORS: preference assessments, establishing operations
Over the past two decades, a number of preference assessment procedures that reli- ably identify reinforcers for individuals with severe disabilities have been developed (e.g., DeLeon & Iwata, 1996; Fisher et al., 1992). Although the efficacy of these procedures is well documented, few studies have examined how often and under what conditions pref- erence assessments should be conducted. There is limited evidence that procedural manipulations influence outcomes; for ex- ample, food items displaced nonfood items when items of both categories were mixed during assessments (DeLeon, Iwata, & Ros-
This report is based on a thesis submitted by the first author to Northeastern University in partial ful- fillment of requirements for the masters degree in ap- plied behavior analysis. We are grateful to Gina Green and several anonymous reviewers for helpful com- ments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Reprints may be obtained from Richard B. Graff, The New England Center for Children, 33 Turnpike Road, Southboro, Massachusetts 01772.
coe, 1997). Other variables may influence the results of preference assessment out- comes. Establishing operations (Michael, 1982) may affect assessment outcomes, but they have not been studied in this context to date. The present study examined the ef- fects of deprivation and satiation on the re- sults of preference assessments.
METHOD
Four individuals enrolled in our behavior- al residential program participated. Ethan (11 years old) had been diagnosed with mus- cular dystrophy and autism. Daniel (11 years old) had been diagnosed with autism and a seizure disorder. Mark (6 years old) and Ash- ley (7 years old) had diagnoses of autism. Sessions were conducted in an unoccupied room at the participants’ residence, 5 to 7 evenings per week, approximately 1 hr after the evening meal.
86 JENNIFER M. GOTTSCHALK et al.
Prior to the start of the study, a stimulus preference assessment was conducted using the procedures described by Fisher et al. (1992). Eight edible items were presented in pairs to each participant, and the percentage of approach responses was calculated for each stimulus. Approach was defined as reaching towards and picking up one item; reaching for more than one item at a time was blocked. The student was allowed to consume the item chosen. To control for possible ceiling and floor effects, the two most and two least preferred stimuli were discarded; the four middle-ranked items for each participant were selected for inclusion in this study.
During the study, stimulus preference as- sessments (Fisher et al., 1992) were con- ducted with the four edible stimuli identi- fied for each participant. Preference assess- ment sessions involved the presentation of 24 stimulus-pair combinations, and oc- curred under three experimental conditions. In the control condition, access to each of the four edible items was regulated for 24 hr prior to the preference assessment by only allowing the participant access to premea- sured portions of each stimulus at three scheduled times. In the satiation condition, an identical 24-hr period of regulated access to all four stimuli was followed by a 10-min period of free access to one of the stimuli. In the deprivation condition, the participant received regulated access to three of the four stimuli for 24 hr prior to the assessment and was deprived of the fourth stimulus for 48 hr prior to the preference assessment. For each participant, four preference assessments were conducted under deprivation condi- tions (one for each stimulus), four assess- ments were conducted under satiation con- ditions (one for each stimulus), and three preference assessments were conducted un- der control conditions.
Data were collected on the percentage of approach responses for each of the stimuli.
During 33% of sessions, a second observer independently recorded data. Interobserver agreement was calculated by dividing the number of agreements by the number of agreements plus disagreements and multiply- ing by 100%. Interobserver agreement for approach responses was 100%.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results are depicted in Figure 1. For Ethan, relative to control conditions, there was a higher percentage of approach re- sponses for three of four stimuli following deprivation. Following satiation, the per- centage of approach responses was lower for all four stimuli. Daniel’s data showed that, relative to control conditions, the percentage of approach responses was higher for all four stimuli following deprivation, and the per- centage of approach responses was lower for all four stimuli following satiation. For Mark, in comparison to control conditions, the percentage of approach responses was higher for all stimuli following deprivation and lower for all four stimuli following sa- tiation. Ashley’s data revealed that, relative to control conditions, the percentage of ap- proach responses was higher for three of four stimuli following deprivation and was lower for three of four stimuli following satiation. Across participants, no generalized satiation effects were noted (i.e., participants contin- ued to approach and consume stimuli across assessments), and changes in approach re- sponses following satiation and deprivation conditions were equally distributed across the other three stimuli. More systematic changes might have been observed if food categories had been selected more closely. That is, if satiation occurred with salty items, selection may have been displaced to- wards liquids. Similarly, if nonedible items had been included in the assessment, satia- tion on edible items may have led to a dis-
87ESTABLISHING OPERATIONS AND PREFERENCE
Figure 1. Percentage of approach responses across conditions for Ethan, Daniel, Mark, and Ashley.
88 JENNIFER M. GOTTSCHALK et al.
placement of selection to activity or sensory stimuli.
These results demonstrate that depriva- tion and satiation can influence the outcome of preference assessments. This suggests that access to stimuli should be monitored prior to conducting preference assessments. Inad- equate control of presession establishing op- erations could lead to functional reinforcers appearing as low-preference items during as- sessments. In addition, this study provides evidence to support the practice of reserving access to certain preferred stimuli for ex- tremely important skill acquisition or behav- ior programs. The results also suggest that less preferred stimuli might serve as effective reinforcers in those settings if access were re- stricted.
Three limitations of this study were that only a small number of stimuli were assessed for each participant, only moderately pre- ferred items were included, and the effec- tiveness of these stimuli as reinforcers was not assessed. Nonetheless, this study extends
previous findings on preference assessments by demonstrating that establishing opera- tions may influence the results of preference assessments.
REFERENCES
DeLeon, I. G., & Iwata, B. A. (1996). Evaluation of a multiple-stimulus presentation format for as- sessing reinforcer preferences. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 29, 519–533.
DeLeon, I. G., Iwata, B. A., & Roscoe, E. M. (1997). Displacement of leisure reinforcers by food during preference assessments. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 30, 475–484.
Fisher, W., Piazza, C. C., Bowman, L. G., Hagopian, L. P., Owens, J. C., & Slevin, I. (1992). A com- parison of two approaches for identifying rein- forcers for persons with severe and profound dis- abilities. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25, 491–498.
Michael, J. (1982). Distinguishing between discrim- inative and motivational functions of stimuli. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 37, 149–155.
Received April 12, 1999 Final acceptance November 16, 1999 Action Editor, Richard G. Smith