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Biomedical subjects

T F Stokes

Publications and source records attributed to T F Stokes.

29 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1980

Reducing child uncooperative behavior during dental treatment through modeling and reinforcement.

The uncooperative behavior of grade-school children during dental treatment was examined. Forty children enrolled in a government dental program were observed during treatment conditions involving instructions concerning the appropriate behavior required by the dental practitioner, description of the objective procedures and subjective experience the child could expect, praise for appropriate behavior, and a colorful stamp for coming to the clinic. Eight of these children whose behavior was still too disruptive for effective dentistry were formally introduced to additional intervention procedures of tangible consequences for cooperative behavior, and observation of peers and by peers during actual dental treatment. Within a multiple baseline design, the intervention conditions were effective in decreasing the children's uncooperative behavior to acceptable levels.

Child↗
PubMed1978

Peer facilitation of generalization in a preschool classroom.

Two 5-year-old deviant preschoolers taught each other, as peer-tutors, to identify pictorial figures describing prepositional relationships. During training sessions monitored by the experimenter, the child in the peer-tutor role presented stimulus materials and provided consequences for the responses of the child in the tutee role. An assessment of generalization by each child to an academic classroom setting occurred each day. The data showed that the peer-tutor could facilitate generalization, when the tutee was probed in the peer-tutor's presence. However, it was found that the salience of the peer-tutor's presence was critical to this effect. In particular, when the peer presented the stimuli or offered occasional consequences for some correct responses, generalization was greatly enhanced.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1978

Training preschool children to recruit natural communities of reinforcement.

Four normal and four deviant children aged four-to-six years were taught to judge the quality of their academic work in a preschool classroom, and to prompt or cue their teachers to comment about the quality of that work. When these skills did not generalize spontaneously to other teachers in concurrent natural situations, generalized responding was taught by the experimenter, in multiple-baseline design across subjects. This generalization programming enabled the children to contact a sometimes dormant, but readily available natural community of teacher praise and reinforcement, i.e., to recruit an increase in cued praise and schedules of praise for their good work. These behaviors may be important to young children who find themselves bereft of attention in classrooms.

Child↗
PubMed1977

An implicit technology of generalization.

Traditionally, discrimination has been understood as an active process, and a technology of its procedures has been developed and practiced extensively. Generalization, by contrast, has been considered the natural result of failing to practice a discrimination technology adequately, and thus has remained a passive concept almost devoid of a technology. But, generalization is equally deserving of an active conceptualization and technology. This review summarizes the structure of the generalization literature and its implicit embryonic technology, categorizing studies designed to assess or program generalization according to nine general headings: Train and Hope; Sequential Modification; Introduce to Natural Maintaining Contingencies; Train Sufficient Exemplars; Train Loosely; Use Indiscriminable Contingencies; Program Common Stimuli; Mediate Generalization; and Train "To Generalize".

Journal Article↗
PubMed1977

Evaluating municipal policy: an analysis of a refuse packaging program.

The effect of a municipal enforcement program to improve residents' packaging of refuse was analyzed in a multiple-baseline design across two areas of a city. The enforcement program involved instruction concerning refuse-packaging regulations, collection only of appropriately packaged refuse, and feedback notices to residents concerning the reasons for noncollection of their inadequately packaged refuse. Both the number of violations and the percentage of residences violating each day were markedly reduced during the enforcement program. Furthermore, sanitation workers considered that the packaging of refuse and the safety and efficiency of refuse collection had improved. This study served as a pilot evaluation of a policy change in the city sanitation department, and was functional in determining the direction of that policy.

Journal Article↗
PubMed1976

Self-recording in training girls to increase work and evoke staff praise in an institution for offenders.

Self-recording procedures were used by four adolescent girls to increase work and comments (cues) that evoked staff praise during vocational training sessions in a maximum-security institution for offenders. The girls were selected on the basis of their not responding to a staff-directed token program. The self-recording procedures were directed by a therapist who saw the girls outside the vocational training sessions. According to a multiple-baseline design, self-recording of work was introduced sequentially to each of the two or three settings the girls attended each day. A few days after work had increased, self-recording of cues was introduced. Tokens were delivered by the therapist for work and cues recorded by the girls. Work and cues increased following self-recording for three of the girls and increased cues evoked higher rates of staff praise. Girl and staff behaviors were maintained during short follow-up periods when tokens were not given for the girls' records. The procedures failed to effect desirable changes with a fourth girl's work and self-recording of work was terminated without introducing cueing.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

Particulate contamination and stability of three additives in 0.9% sodium chloride injection in plastic and glass large-volume containers.

The effect of particulate matter and stability of three parenteral drugs upon addition to glass and flexible polyvinyl chloride containers of 0.9% sodium chloride injection was studied. Aminophylline, lidocaine hydrochloric and metaraminol bitartrate were added to the solution in therapeutic quantities using techniques normally practiced by the hospital pharmacist. Statistical comparisons of the amount of particulate matter present were made for each solution consisting of drug added to plastic and glass bottles, drug filtered through a 0.22-mum filter and then added to the solution in plastic bags, controls for bags and bottles, and solutions with adjusted pH values to simulate the pH attained after addition of the drug to the solution. A correlation appeared to exist between the quantity of particulate matter and the amount of unfiltered drug solution added to the large-volume parenteral containers. Differences in storage and handling had an influence on the initial quantity of particles found in the plastic bags, no significant change in concentration of the drugs occurred during the 24-hour test period.

Aminophylline↗
PubMed1974

Programming the generalization of a greeting response in four retarded children.

Reinforcement techniques of prompting and shaping were employed to develop handwaving, a useful social greeting response, in four institutionalized retarded subjects. A multiple-baseline design across subjects demonstrated the reliable functioning of the training procedures. Specifically, it showed that training and maintenance of the greeting response by one experimenter was not usually sufficient for generalization of the response to the more than 20 other members of the institution staff who had not participated in the training of the response. However, high levels of generalization to staff members were recorded for three subjects over periods ranging from one to six months after a second experimenter trained and maintained the response in conjunction with the first experimenter. The fourth subject, although never receiving training by a second experimenter, showed similar results following a second training by the first experimenter.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Reinforced practice of children's cooperative behavior during restorative dental treatment.

A reinforced practice procedure was employed to teach cooperative behaviors to two 36-month-old children undergoing restorative dental treatment. The children were rewarded with temporary escape, praise, and stickers for practicing the use of cooperative behavior in the presence of the sights, sounds, and some of the sensations of the dental instruments, before the actual dental treatment. Observations of four classes of disruptive behavior during treatment indicated that baseline levels of disruptive behavior, typically greater than 95 percent, were reduced by more than 70 percent, following several practice visits. These changes were acceptable to the dentist--and to his assistant, who rated the children as more cooperative and less anxious.

Anxiety↗