UNT Theses and Dissertations - 161 Matching Results

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Evaluation of a Behavior Skills Package to Teach Caregivers to Manage Disruptive Behavior during Medical and Dental Appointments

Description: Adults with developmental disabilities that live in large residential settings experience complications due to problem behavior when attending routine medical/dental appointments. This may result in sedation for clients for even the most routine medical/dental appointments. The purpose of this project was to develop a comprehensive staff training program that incorporated best practices to teach direct-support professionals behavior management techniques and best practices for transporting clie… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Kinser, Joshua Andrew
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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When to Say It: Establishing a Verbal Cue

Description: Dog trainers sometimes teach verbal cues by saying the cue as the dog is performing the desired behavior. However, there is disagreement about when to say the cue. In this study, a pet dog was trained to go to three different apparatus, the cue for each of which was given at a different time, in a multi-element design. The cue "hoop" was given just as the dog began to move to the hoop apparatus. The cue "carrier" was given as the dog was stepping into the carrier apparatus. The cue "platform" w… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Rulla, Emily
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Musical Priming and Operant Selection

Description: Language is a cultural construct, and the relationship between words is taught. Priming research has long investigated the relationship between related and unrelated words. Similar research has been seen in music relationships, but most of these investigate harmonic relations despite the melodic relationship being the one listeners are mostly likely to describe. Further, these studies typically measure existing relationships and do not attempt to teach a new relationship, nothing that most adu… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Vail, Kimberly Gail
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Teaching Observational Learning to Children with Autism: An In-vivo and Video-Model Assessment

Description: Observational learning (OL) occurs when an individual contacts reinforcement as a direct result of discriminating the observed consequences of other individuals' responses. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have deficits in observational learning and previous research has demonstrated that teaching a series of prerequisite skills (i.e., attending, imitation, delayed imitation, and consequence discrimination) can result in observational learning. We sequentially taught these pr… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Sansing, Elizabeth M
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Using Concurrent Schedules of Reinforcement to Decrease Behavior

Description: We manipulated delay and magnitude of reinforcers in two concurrent schedules of reinforcement to decrease a prevalent behavior while increasing another behavior already in the participant's repertoire. The first experiment manipulated delay, implementing a five second delay between the behavior and delivery of reinforcement for a behavior targeted for decrease while no delay was implemented after the behavior targeted for increase. The second experiment manipulated magnitude, providing one pi… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Palmer, Ashlyn
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Online Lecture As an Alternative Method of Instruction in College Classrooms: Measuring the Effects of Alternating In-class with Online Lectures in Two Sections of an Undergraduate Introduction to Behavior Analysis Course

Description: Online instruction is becoming increasingly common at universities; however, there is little single subject research concerning the effectiveness of the online lecture format. We investigated whether online lecture could replace in-class lecture in two sections of an undergraduate Introduction to Behavior Analysis course without detrimentally affecting student learning. Using an adapted alternating treatments design, online and in-class lecture formats were counterbalanced across the two course… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Treacher, Kay G.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Oral Syringe Training Animals: Indiscriminable and Discriminable Punishment Contingencies

Description: Animals are commonly trained to perform behaviors during routine husbandry procedures. However, some husbandry procedures have aversive consequences when the real procedure is performed. This commonly results in loss of the trained behavior. The present study assessed whether maintaining the antecedent environmental stimulus conditions between appetitive and aversive outcomes would prevent this effect and, conversely, whether adding a stimulus discrepancy would facilitate this effect. Three dom… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Erickson, Emilie Jane
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effects of Homework Sessions on Undergraduate Students' Homework Performance

Description: Experimenters evaluated the effects of a homework session on undergraduate students' homework performance through an adapted alternating treatments design in two introduction to behavior analysis courses. Several participants attended homework sessions; however, homework submission and homework mastery did not vary as a function of homework session attendance or availability. Homework submission remained high throughout the experiment regardless of attendance at or availability of a homework se… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Hamilton, Elissa R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Using Progressive Ratio Schedules to Evaluate Edible, Leisure, and Token Reinforcement

Description: The general purpose of the current study was to evaluate the potency of different categories of reinforcers with young children diagnosed with developmental delays. The participants were two boys and one girl who were between the ages of seven and eight. In Phase 1, we evaluated the reinforcing potency of tokens, edible items, and leisure items by using a progressive ratio (PR) schedule. For two participants, we found that tokens resulted in the highest PR break points. For one participant, edi… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Russell, Danielle M.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Descriptive Analysis of the Use and Effect of a Self-management Project in an Undergraduate Course in Behavior Analysis

Description: Undergraduate male and female students enrolled in an introductory behavior analysis course with minimal instruction on self-management were given modified exploratory logs to use in a self-management project. Students self-monitored behavior via the log, constructed their own interventions, and reported changes in behavior and extent of success in a write up at course end. Changes in self-reported descriptions in the logs as well as the written results of a pre and post survey of emotional res… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Lamancusa, Michelle
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Determining the Relation Between the Moments of Acquisition of Baseline Conditional Discriminations and the Emergence of Equivalence Relations

Description: The experiment was an attempt to gain a more precise understanding of the temporal relation between the development of analytic units and equivalence relations. Two prompting procedures were used during training to pinpoint when eight subjects learned the conditional discriminations. Near simultaneous presentation of probe and training trials allowed for examination of the temporal relation between conditional discrimination acquisition and derived performances on stimulus equivalence probes. T… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Swisher, Melissa J.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Analyzing Contingencies of Behavioral and Cultural Selection

Description: A choice paradigm was used to evaluate allocation of interlocking behavior of two groups of two participants between responses having operant consequences only and responses having cultural consequences. In a discrete trial BABABAB design, each participant could select one of three options, which delivered either 3 or 5 points. In B (cultural consequence) conditions, two of the options had additional effects: the 3-point option also added 3 points to the other participant's earnings, and one of… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Hunter, Chad S.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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A Training Program to Facilitate Caregiver Involvement in School Meetings

Description: Caregivers of children with autism will likely meet with many school professionals once their children become school-aged. These meetings can be intimidating for caregivers who are unfamiliar with special education terminology and protocol, and caregivers may feel ineffective when communicating with school personnel. The purpose of this study is to describe a training curriculum to teach caregivers ways in which to communicate during meetings with school professionals, including the kinds of qu… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Barahona, Heather
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effects of a Communication Training Workshop on the Verbal Behavior of Caregivers

Description: This study evaluated the effectiveness of a workshop designed to train adults to use supportive verbal behavior during distressful situations. Participants were trained to provide descriptive, empathetic and hopeful statements using instructions, rationales, modeling, role-play, feedback, and rehearsal. A pre-post design was used to analyze the effects of the training on verbal and non-verbal behaviors of four females during simulation scenarios. Results indicate all four participants provided … more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Blell, Zainab D.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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An Observation of Early Parent-Infant Social Interactions in Relation to the Emergence of Joint Attention in the Natural Environment

Description: Early interactions between parents and infants are thought to be critical of later development. In particular joint attention has been an area of research and investigations. This study sought to measure joint attention behaviors in infants from 5 to 33 weeks of age under naturalistic conditions: in the home with the mother as the interaction partner given no instructions. Videotapes of the infant-parent interactions were observed and data were collected on behaviors related to joint attention.… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Pinsky, Karen
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Effects of Reinforcer Magnitude on a Fixed Time Food Delivery Treatment of Pica

Description: The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of using fixed time schedules with different magnitudes of stimulus delivery as treatment for pica. A functional assessment was conducted, which indicated that pica occurred across experimental conditions and was most frequent in the absence of social stimulation or contingencies. A competing stimulus assessment was then conducted to identify stimuli that could potentially compete with pica during NCR. Subsequently, an evaluation of… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Lyon, Nathan Scott
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effects of Copying Before, Copying After, and Guessing on Acquisition Rate and Retention

Description: Computer-based instructional programs are being used more frequently in classrooms. While these programs offer many benefits from traditional teaching methods, humans still need to program them. There is inconsistency in the literature regarding the best way to design such programs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of three training procedures in teaching individuals to type a specified three-letter response in the presence of a corresponding symbol. Results show that the t… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Pinkelman, Sarah Ellen
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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The Effect of High-Probability Request Sequences on Latency to Comply with Instructions to Transition in a Child With Severe Mental Retardation

Description: This study investigated the effect of implementing high-probability request sequences prior to the delivery of instructions to transition in a child with severe mental retardation. Data were collected on latency to comply with a low-probability request to transition and a modified version of the low-probability request. Implementation of high-probability request sequences resulted in shortened latencies to comply with the modified low-probability request instructing the child to engage in a p… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Carpentieri, Michelle Lee
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Comparison of Picture to Word Training and Word to Word Training on Native English Speaking College Students’ Acquisition of Italian Vocabulary

Description: The current study assessed the effects of two teaching stimulus presentations, i.e. picture to word and word to word, used to teach second language vocabulary to college students. It also evaluated the emergence of untaught relations when picture to word and word to word were used separately as a teaching strategy. The findings showed picture to word training resulted in more untaught relations. Several aspects such time allotted for online quizzes, experimental and teaching arrangements and vo… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Vo, Phuong Vi
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Power of One Reinforcer

Description: Animal trainers use shaping to teach many behaviors. However, during shaping, the organism may engage in behaviors other than the target behavior or approximations to the target behavior. If the animal is engaged in other behaviors, the rate of reinforcement may decrease and the trainer may resort to what is sometimes referred to as a “desperation click.” That is, the trainer delivers one reinforcer for a behavior that is not a successive approximation to the target response. Anecdotal reports… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Hunter, Mary E.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Further Evaluation of Blocked Trials to Teach Intraverbal Conditional Discriminations: Effects of Criterion-level Probes

Description: Individuals with autism often have deficient intraverbal repertoires. Previous research has found success in using a blocked trials procedure to facilitate discrimination training. A previous study (unpublished) from our laboratory extended this procedure to intraverbal training. The current study continued this line of research by exploring the outcomes of probing the criterion performance more frequently. Three children with autism, ages 7-13, participated. Eight question pairs were taught. … more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Haggar, Jennifer Lynn
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Measuring the Effect of Alternating In-class with Online Lecture on Student Learning in College Classrooms

Description: Personalized instruction has long been a goal of behavior analysis in the education of typically developing populations, one important element of which is the delivery of lectures in new formats. This study tested feasibility of online lecture delivery by comparing online and in-class delivery of lectures using an adapted alternating treatments design. Each week, the lecture component of a unit of an introductory behavior analysis course was presented either online or in-class, alternating wee… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Kellerstedt, Brett G.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Shall We Dance? Teaching Parents the Communication Dance to Enhance Generalized Communication in Their Children

Description: Children diagnosed with autism exhibit deficits in communication that impact their ability to control their immediate environment. Recent research on mand training has been criticized for producing a limited number of mand topographies over a long span of time with limited generalization to novel environments. There is a body of research, however, that successfully establishes larger repertoires. Training parents as change agents may mediate generalization by teaching under naturally maintainin… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Baker, Jacqueline R.
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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Exploring Fundamental Principles in the Study of Derived Relational Responding in Pigeons

Description: A persistent challenge for behaviorally-based accounts of learning has been providing an account of learning that occurs in the absence of systematically programmed contingencies of reinforcement. Symmetry, one type of emergent behavior, has been repeatedly demonstrated with humans, but has been considerably more difficult to demonstrate with non-humans. In this study, pigeons were exposed to a go/no-go procedure in which hue stimuli were presented full screen on a touchscreen monitor. Pigeons … more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Hinnenkamp, Jay Evan
Item Type: Refine your search to only Thesis or Dissertation
Partner: UNT Libraries
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