Dishabituation of Operant Responding in Preschool-Aged Children

In applied settings, reinforcer satiation and the resulting response decrements may negatively affect otherwise effective treatments and can be difficult to avoid for some learners; previous research has suggested that a more precise explanation for these decrements may involve habituation to the sensory properties of repeatedly presented reinforcers, a process that carries with it different implications that may be useful in practice. One such implication is that habituated responding can undergo dishabituation, a recovery of habituated responding, following a brief stimulus change. The current study examined the effects of a dishabituation procedure on the operant responding of three children, all within the age range of children who typically receive early intensive behavioral intervention services. The participants engaged in an operant task in which they placed various task stimuli (e.g., pieces of foam, blocks, or poker chips) into a container in exchange for a small edible item or access to a toy. In each condition, once responding decreased to a predetermined level, the reinforcer (i.e., an edible) or an antecedent variable (i.e., the research assistant facilitating the task or the task stimulus) was changed for 2 min and then returned for an additional 2 min, whereas all other stimuli remained the same. Results indicated dishabituation patterns were observed in eight out of nine experimental conditions compared to control (no change) conditions in which responding did not recover, suggesting dishabituation procedures may provide options for at least temporarily reinstating the effectiveness of reinforcers.