Transfer of Stimulus Control

Description of the Strategy

Transfer of stimulus control (TSC) is a behavioral treatment technique that has been found to be a useful treatment with a range of childhood behavior issues, particularly with childhood autistic spectrum disorders, developmental disabilities, and classroom management situations. TSC is firmly based in learning theory and procedures. The majority of clinical research utilizing TSC techniques is in the areas of elimination disorders, child management issues, and improving spelling skills.

TSC is the transference of one target behavioreliciting stimulus (the primary stimulus) to a new target behavior-eliciting stimulus (secondary stimulus). TSC is utilized when a primary stimulus cannot be used effectively due to a change in persons or settings. The transfer from the primary stimulus to the secondary stimulus occurs via a temporal pairing of the primary and secondary stimulus, coupled with the gradual fading of the primary stimulus. This accomplishes the transference of the primary stimulus to the secondary stimulus such that the target behavior is successfully elicited by the secondary stimulus. For example, a mother (who has successful compliance control over her child) may come into a classroom where her child is exhibiting a low level of compliance to teacher commands. The mother will provide the majority of commands interspersed by teacher commands. The mother's commands are the primary stimulus; the teacher's commands are the secondary stimulus. The ratio of maternal commands to teacher commands (primary to secondary stimulus) is slowly reversed until the teacher is providing the majority of commands. Thus, teacher commands—which were unsuccessful in gaining child compliance prior to the introduction of TSC—will now yield the desired level of child compliance. TSC of the target behavior of child compliance from maternal commands to teacher commands would be considered successfully completed.

Research Basis

TSC utilizes a classical conditioning paradigm. The founder of classical conditioning, Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936), was a Russian physiologist. His original work was on gastric physiology. During his work in 1903, he observed that the subjects of his experiments, dogs, often began salivating prior to his placement of food into their mouths. Pavlov concluded that after repeated pairings of walking toward the dogs with giving them food, the animals became conditioned to salivate, without receiving the food. Pavlov knew that food was a primary stimulus for eliciting salivation behavior in dogs. He theorized that the repeated pairing of the primary stimulus (food) with the secondary stimulus (his walking with food to the [Page 1080]dogs) had created a TSC from a primary (food) to a secondary (walking toward dogs) controlling stimulus. He called this elicited salivation behavior to his walking a “conditioned response.”

Pavlov took this observation and completed a line of experiments that supported his theory of classical conditioning. His most famous experiment was pairing a bell to food, thus creating a conditioned response in his subjects to respond to a bell by salivating. This experiment is the classical conditioning basis for stimulus control. Pavlov showed that there are stimuli that can be classically conditioned to act as stimulus control in eliciting a response or behavior in animals.

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