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Biomedical subjects

R M Foxx

Publications and source records attributed to R M Foxx.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1984

Teaching social/sexual skills to mentally retarded adults.

A social/sexual skills training program for institutionalized mentally retarded adults was evaluated. The target behaviors involved a verbal action or reaction within six skill areas and were taught using a commercially available table game, Sorry, and a specially designed card deck. The program featured response-specific feedback, self-monitoring, individualized reinforcers, and individualized performance criterion levels. A multiple baseline across two groups (N = 3 per group) revealed that there were increases in all skill areas. Generalization occurred in individual and group tests conducted by a retarded peer. The program appears to be an effective method of training social/sexual skills because it produces effects that generalize.

Education of Persons with Intellectual Disabilitie↗
PubMed1983

Stacking the deck: teaching social skills to retarded adults with a modified table game.

This study developed and evaluated a social skills training program for institutionalized mildly or moderately retarded and dually diagnosed individuals. Social skills were conceptualized as requiring an action or reaction within six skill areas: compliments, social interactions, politeness, criticism, social confrontation, and questions/answers. The program taught social skills using a commercially available table game, Sorry, and a specially designed card deck. Each card represented one of the skill areas and was designed to train either an actor or reactor response. The program featured response specific feedback, self-monitoring, individualized reinforcers, and individualized performance criterion levels. A multiple baseline across two groups (N = 3 per group) revealed that the game contingencies increased social skills in all targeted areas. After training, the subjects displayed their newly learned skills at or above their trained levels in two different settings with novel persons present. Although untargeted, the complexity of the subjects' responses increased across conditions, since there was a steady increase in the number of words they used per response. The program appears to be a viable means of training social skills since it uses standardized training procedures, requires only one facilitator, and is in itself a social situation that may encourage interactions with peers, cooperation, competition, and politeness.

Adult↗
PubMed1981

A company-based lottery to reduce the personal driving of employees.

A company-based lottery was used to reduce the number of nonessential miles employees drove their personal cars each day and thereby save gasoline. Employees were divided into an experimental and a contrast group. The experimental design involved two conditions: (a) a baseline in which no consequences were attached to driving behavior, and (b) a month-long lottery in which the experimentals were rewarded for decreasing their percentage of average miles driven per day relative to their initial baseline average. The experimentals received an ABA order of conditions while the contrast group remained in baseline. The lottery condition consisted of four weekly lotteries and one grand drawing held at the end of the month. During the lottery condition, the experimentals reduced their average daily mileage by 11.6% relative to their initial baseline (7.85 miles per employee per day) while the contrast employees increased their average mileage by 21.2%. Both groups exceeded their initial baseline averages in the return to baseline. The study was almost cost-effective because the experimentals' gas savings ($75) was within $4 of the cost of motivating them to reduce their mileage ($79).

Journal Article↗
PubMed1979

A food satiation and oral hygiene punishment program to suppress chronic rumination by retarded persons.

Food satiation and oral hygiene punishment were used to treat the non-life-threatening rumination of two institutionalized profoundly retarded persons. Satiation consisted of allowing the clients to eat until a satiation criterion of food refusal was achieved or until two full meal portions were consumed. The oral hygiene procedure consisted of cleansing the clients' teeth and gums with Listerine for 2 minutes following each instance of rumination. In the formal study, three conditions--baseline, satiation, and satiation plus oral hygiene--were used following the lunch meal in a multiple-baseline across-subjects design. One client's rumination decreased from an average of 89.5% during baseline to 48.8% during the satiation condition and to 3% during satiation plus oral hygiene. The second client's rumination decreased from a baseline average of 49.9% to 7.9% during satiation and to 1.4% during satiation plus oral hygiene. Generalization probes taken following the breakfast and dinner meals showed a systematic decline in rumination as the various conditions were implemented following the lung meal. In the 16-week follow-up, rumination was treated following all meals with oral hygiene, and satiation was used at one of the daily meals for 1 week on a rotating basis. Rumination remained at a near-zero level following all meals throughout the follow-up. Thereafter, a maintenance program was conducted by the ward staff. The satiation plus oral hygiene punishment treatment program appears to be an immediate, effective, enduring, and humane method of treating the non-life-threatening rumination of retarded individuals.

Adult↗
PubMed1979

Nicotine fading and self-monitoring for cigarette abstinence or controlled smoking.

This study compared four treatment approaches to cigarette smoking: (1) a nicotine fading procedure, in which subjects changed their cigarette brands each week to ones containing progressively less nicotine and tar; (2) a self-monitoring procedure in which subjects plotted their daily intake of nicotine and tar; (3) a combined nicotine fading/self-monitoring procedure; and (4) a slightly modified American Cancer Society Stop Smoking Program. Thirty-eight habitual smokers were assigned to one of the treatment groups. The study had two goals: (1) to achieve a clinically significant percentage of abstinence, and (2) to reduce the nonabstainers' smoking to a "safer" level by having them smoke low tar and nicotine cigarettes. The 18-month followup results showed that the nicotine fading/self-monitoring group was the most successful: 40% were abstinent and all who had not quit were smoking cigarettes lower in tar and nicotine than their baseline brands. Half the nonabstainers had decreased their rate of smoking relative to baseline while the other half had increased. Furthermore, the fading/self-monitoring group achieved the largest reductions from baseline in daily nicotine and tar intake (61% and 70% respectively). The results suggest that the study's goals were achieved and that the nonaversive combined procedure could be used to treat not only habitual smokers but also smokers with severe cardiovascular and respiratory problems, because it does not have some of the inherent limitations of the successful aversive smoking cessation procedures.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1979

Behavioral treatment of caffeinism: reducing excessive coffee drinking.

Excessive coffee drinking can have deleterious effects because of the large amounts of caffeine that are ingested. Caffeine is thought to be addicting, and prolonged and excessive use can lead to caffeinism, a condition that has serious behavioral and physiological side effects. The present study developed and evaluated a treatment program to reduce excessive daily coffee drinking to moderate and presumably safer levels. Three habitual coffee drinkers received individualized changing criterion programs that systematically and gradually reduced their daily caffeine intake. The coffee drinkers were required to self-monitor and plot their daily intake of caffeine. They received monetary prizes for not exceeding the treatment phase criteria and forfeited a portion of their pretreatment deposit when they did. Their coffee drinking decreased from almost nine cups per day (over 1100 mg of caffeine) during baseline to less than three cups per day (less than 343 mg) at the end of treatment or a reduction of 69%. The treatment effect was maintained during a 10-month follow-up, averaging a 67% reduction from baseline. The program appears to be a reasonable method of reducing and then maintaining daily caffeine intake at less harmful levels.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1978

The timeout ribbon: a nonexclusionary timeout procedure.

Recently, the use of timeout rooms has been questioned by various agencies, and some have adopted policies that prohibit or greatly restrict exclusionary timeout. The present study developed a timeout procedure that did not require removal of the misbehaver from the learning environment. The procedure was applied to the disruptive behaviors of five severely retarded children in an institutional special-education classroom. An observer prompted all teacher behaviors related to the procedures to assure their precise implementation. After baseline, a reinforcement-only condition was implemented. Each child was given a different colored ribbon to wear as a tie and received edibles and praise every few minutes for good behavior and for wearing the ribbon. When timeout was added, a child's ribbon was removed for any instance of misbehavior and teacher attention and participation in activities ceased for three minutes or until the misbehavior stopped. Reinforcement continued at other times for appropriate behavior. An ABCBC reversal design was used to demonstrate control of the behavior by the conditions applied. On average, the children misbehaved 42% and 32% of the time during the baseline and reinforcement conditions respectively but only 6% of the time during the timeout conditions. A followup probe during the new school year revealed that the teacher was able to conduct the procedure independently and that the children's disruptive behaviors were maintained at low levels. The practicality and acceptability of the procedure were supported further by the successful implementation of the procedure by a teacher in another state and by responses to a questionnaire given to 40 mental health professionals. The ribbon procedure appears to be a viable form of timeout, provided that disruptive behaviors during timeout can be tolerated within the setting, or a backup procedure such as exclusionary timeout can be tolerated within the setting, or a backup procedure such as exclusionary timeout is available when needed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1977

Attention training: the use of overcorrection avoidance to increase the eye contact of autistic and retarded children.

A crucial first step in teaching and training the retarded and autistic is to develop and maintain eye contact with the therapist. Functional movement training (an overcorrection procedure) plus edibles and praise were compared with edibles and praise alone as a method of developing eye contact in three such children. In both conditions, the child was given food and praise when eye contact occurred within 5 sec of the therapist's verbal prompt: "Look at me." Functional movement training avoidance plus edibles and praise produced about 90% attention for the three children, while edibles and praise alone were less effective (eye contact never exceeded 55%). Functional movement training avoidance combined with edibles and praise appears to be an effective method of teaching eye contact and possibly other forms of instruction-following to behaviorally disordered children who are not always responsive to positive consequences.

Attention↗
PubMed1977

Gasoline conservation: a procedure for measuring and reducing the driving of college students.

The study sought to motivate college students to reduce the number of miles they drove each day and thus save gasoline. Students in two psychology classes were divided by class into two groups. The experimental group was offered various combinations of prizes such as cash, a tour of a mental-health facility, car servicing, and a university parking sticker for reducing driving. The value of the prize received was scaled in terms of per cent reduction in driving. The contrast group received no inducements. The condition in which the experimental group's mileage reduction was reinforced was counterbalanced by two baseline conditions. Several special recording procedures were used to reduce and detect the possibility of subjects altering their odometers, the source of the driving data. Experimental subjects reduced their average daily mileage by 20% relative to the initial baseline; the contrast group did not change. During the one-month reinforcement condition, the 12 experimental subjects saved some 170 gallons (worth $102) of gasoline.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1973

The elimination of autistic self-stimulatory behavior by overcorrection.

No method is in general usage and of demonstrated effectiveness in eliminating the self-stimulatory behaviors of retardates and autistics. An Overcorrection rationale was used to develop such a method. The Overcorrection procedures consisted of a period of practice in the correct mode of the behavior contingent upon self-stimulatory behavior. The procedures were applied in a behavioral day-care program to three retarded children and one autistic child who exhibited object-mouthing, hand-mouthing, head-weaving and hand-clapping. For some behaviors, comparisons were made between the Overcorrection procedure and several alternative procedures, such as physical punishment by a slap, reinforcement for nonself-stimulatory behavior, a distasteful solution painted on the hand of a hand-mouther, and free reinforcement. The Overcorrection procedures eliminated the self-stimulatory behaviors of all four children in tutorial sessions and during the entire school day and were more effective than the alternative procedures in eliminating self-stimulation. The Overcorrection procedures appear to be rapid, enduring, and effective methods of eliminating self-stimulatory behavior.

Journal Article↗