TIMEOUT FROM POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT FOLLOWING PERSISTENT, HIGH‐RATE BEHAVIOR IN RETARDATES

Abstract

Brief isolation from a group situation was found to suppress persistent, high-rate misbehavior in two extremely withdrawn children, even though no positive reinforcement for other behaviors was systematically administered. Changes in a variety of behaviors, including looking, touching, speaking, responding, and other non-punished misbehaviors, were observed when isolation timeout was administered contingent on only one misbehavior of each child.