Staats Chapter 46: Application of Operant Conditioning to Reinstate Verbal Behavior in Psychotics

Question 1

Patient A

Answer 1

Mute for 19 years

Experimenter found that his eyes shifted toward a stick of gum and decided to use this as a reinforcer

Used successive approximations in meetings with the patient three times per week

Patient was first rewarded for making eye contact with the gum

The patient was then rewarded for lip movements, followed by rewarding lip movements and a vocalization

Was rewarded for saying “gum, please”

Eventually staff was included to reward only his verbalizations

However, it didn’t generalize outside of hospital setting

Question 2

Patient B

Answer 2

Mute for 14 years

Gum was given for going to group session, then it was given if he participated in activities

He was rewarded for drawing a person, and other patients also commended

He was rewarded for verbalizations and also do praise from other patients

He was eventually able to make verbalizations without gum

Question 3

Discussion

Answer 3

Shaping can be done to either increase behaviors of low-frequency or decrease abnormal behaviors

The goal is to increase or decrease behaviors for more normal outcome