Abstract
A method for the experimental study of young children in natural settings is described. These settings include the home, institution, school, and clinic as well as the behavior of parents, peers, and professional workers. Dominant stimulus and response events are assessed in preliminary observations which typically involve written accounts of the child’s behavior and the conditions under which it occurs. Subsequently, a behavioral code which specifies these events is constructed. The adequacy of the code is then tested and revised until independent observers reliably agree on the occurrence of the events. The training of observers, methods of calculating reliability coefficients, and the frequency of observations are discussed. The experimental design is a single subject strategy in which data are collected on individual children under four or more conditions to evaluate the functional relationships between behavior and environmental stimuli. During the first of these conditions, the baseline period, the field situation is left unchanged. Next, the variable of interest is manipulated to assess its effect on the behavior being observed. When response frequency has again stabilized, the conditions are changed to those that were in effect during the baseline period. In the fourth phase, the conditions of the first experimental period are reinstated. Ways of analyzing the data and interpreting the findings are also discussed.
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This paper summarizes the efforts of numerous individuals working in the field-experimental situations since 1962 at the University of Washington and the University of Illinois. Among them are D. M. Baer, M. M. Wolf, T. R. Risley, and Betty Hart, University of Kansas; J.S. Birnbrauer, University of North Carolina; R. Wahler, University of Tennessee; H. N. Sloane, University of Utah; Marion Ault, University of Illinois; Susan G. O’Leary, Stony Brook, New York; Sophia Brown, Jacksonville, Illinois; and Eleanor Brawley, Richmond, Virginia. We are especially indebted to Andrew Wheeler who obtained the data presented in Figure 5. Support for this paper and for many of the studies cited in it was from the U. S. Public Health Service, National Institute of Mental Health (M-2208, M2232, and MH 12067) and from the Division of Research, Bureau of Education for the Handicapped, U. S. Office of Education, Grant No. OEG-0-9-2322030-0762(032).
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Bijou, S.W., Peterson, R.F., Harris, F.R. et al. Methodology for Experimental Studies of Young Children in Natural Settings. Psychol Rec 19, 177–210 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393844
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393844