Abstract
A study designed to strengthen academic performance in 4 highly disruptive, educable mentally retarded boys revealed that merely presenting academic material on a systematic basis virtually eliminated their disruptive behavior. When differential reinforcement was applied to math or reading, it resulted in maximal performance on that subject matter which was followed by token reinforcement. Further, within 19 hours of reinforcement contingent upon academic performance, reading comprehension improved from a pre-primer to a second-grade level for two children, and from first grade to fourth grade for the other two children. The data suggest it may be possible to reduce or eliminate disruptive behavior by arranging for systematic presentation of academic material.
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A portion of this article was presented at the Second Annual Conference on Behavior Analysis in Education, 1971, Lawrence, Kansas. The authors wish to thank Jerry McCullen in the conduct of this study and Louise Berry, George O’Neill, and Michael D. Roberts for their help in the preparation of the manuscript.
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Ayllon, T., Layman, D. & Burke, S. Disruptive Behavior and Reinforcement of Academic Performance. Psychol Rec 22, 315–323 (1972). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394096
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03394096