ABSTRACT
Many behavioral interventions are designed to increase adaptive responding in clients. In such cases, individuals may possess appropriate behavioral repertoires but not perform them frequently. For example, an individual who is described as being socially withdrawn may possess the appropriate social skills for initiating interactions with others but may not perform these skills when in the presence of other people. In a similar vein, community behavioral interventions often seek to increase adaptive community behaviors, such as healthy lifestyles, use of safe working and leisure environments etc. In other instances, individuals may not possess the targeted skills. For example, people with developmental disabilities sometimes exhibit deficits in various social, daily-living, and academic skills. In these cases behavioral techniques can be used to establish or teach these new skills. This chapter will examine a variety of behavioral strategies, based on the principles of reinforcement, that can be used to increase adaptive responding in applied settings. Shaping and chaining techniques that can be used to establish new behaviors or complex sets of behaviors will also be examined. In addition to increasing the frequency of behaviors or establishing new behaviors, it is equally important that these gains are maintained over time, and, in many cases, can be demonstrated across different settings other than the treatment setting. The power or validity of a behavioral intervention is not only measured by its ability to increase behaviors; a behavioral intervention must produce behaviors that can generalize across persons, settings, and time. Strategies that can be used to program generalized responding will be discussed. Finally, the use of negative reinforcement, which produces increases in behavior to avoid or escape stimuli, in applied settings will be examined.
