Noncontingent Reinforcement

Description of the Strategy

In recent years, researchers have demonstrated that undesired operant behaviors exhibited by people with developmental disabilities can be reduced by delivering the reinforcer for those behaviors under purely timebased (usually fixed-time) schedules. Such schedules often are referred to as noncontingent reinforcement (NCR), although that description is inaccurate, as discussed below, under “Complications.” Using NCR typically involves three steps, described as follows.

Step 1: Functional assessment

Initially, a functional assessment should be conducted to identify the reinforcer(s) for the problem behavior. Depending on the time and resources available, the reinforcer(s) can be isolated by direct observation, interviews with knowledgeable caregivers, or experimental functional analysis in which the target behavior is measured under different experimental conditions. In most published studies, attention was the reinforcer for the troublesome behavior, although other reinforcers also have been identified.

NCR typically is most useful when the reinforcer for the behavior to be reduced is a stimulus that can be identified and delivered by caregivers. Studies have, however, shown that the response-independent delivery of stimuli believed to be important to clients (e.g., attention) will sometimes reduce undesired behaviors even though those behaviors are not maintained by those stimuli. Frequently, attending to a person who is selfinjurious may, for instance, reduce self-injury, even if attention is not the reinforcer for the behavior. Response-independent delivery of edibles and attention may be worth considering as techniques for reducing hard-to-manage behaviors in clients with severe developmental disabilities, even under conditions where the reinforcers that maintain those behaviors in the everyday environment cannot be isolated or manipulated.

Step 2: NCR

NCR involves delivering to the client the stimulus that was delivered in Step 1 as the reinforcer for the target behavior or delivering another stimulus thought to be valuable to him or her. This stimulus is presented each time a specified period of time elapses, regardless of whether or not the behavior occurs. This arrangement is technically labeled a fixed-time schedule. If, for example, a psychiatric inpatient's screaming is reinforced by attention from staff, NCR would involve having a staff member attend to the patient at specified intervals regardless of whether or not the patient screamed. The time the staff attends to the patient should be similar to the period of attention that was revealed to be reinforcing during functional assessment.

Initially, the interval between presentations of the stimulus should be very brief. In fact, NCR often starts with continuous stimulus presentations. The interval is gradually increased across time until a value that can be sustained over long periods is reached. In most published studies, the maximum interstimulus interval [Page 400]attained typically is in the neighborhood of 5 minutes. No one knows whether substantially longer intervals are effective in reducing behavior. It appears, however, that success at longer intervals may require a very gradual increase in the interstimulus interval and perhaps an increase in stimulus duration or amount. Moreover, adding a “protective” requirement, such that stimulus delivery cannot occur until a specified period has elapsed without occurrence of the target behavior, may increase effectiveness. Under such an arrangement, each occurrence of the target behavior would reset the interstimulus interval. Although this possibility has not been systematically evaluated, arranging variable time rather than fixed time, stimulus presentation is another strategy for increasing treatment effectiveness when a long interstimulus interval is required. Reinforcing desired alternatives to the response targeted for deceleration is another strategy that merits consideration.

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