Abstract
Previous research on the treatment of problem behavior has shown differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) to be an effective behavior-reduction procedure. However, the extent to which presession descriptions of the DRO contingency enhance intervention effects has not been examined. In the current study, we compared a condition in which a presession rule that described the DRO contingency was given to a condition in which no rule was given for 4 participants. The target behavior was toy play, which served as an analogue to problem behavior maintained by automatic reinforcement. Results showed that DRO was more efficient for 1 participant and more effective for 2 participants when a rule was given.
