Application of Operant Conditioning Procedures to the Behaviour Problems of an Autistic Child

This operant conditioning experiment consisted of a little boy by the name of Dicky who was conditioned with autistic characteristics around the age of 3 years old. The beginning of the article talked about his previous history of specialists that investigated his case. He suffered from brain damage that was localized and was considered a “psychotic” person (Wolf, Risley & Mees 1963). He exhibited behaviors that seemed harmful in nature such as banging his head against the wall and throwing major temper tantrums. He also had some difficulties sleeping, eating, and speaking in proper sentences. To help remedy the previous symptoms, the specialists used different forms of operant conditioning to help Dicky from these harmful behaviors.

They began the study by taking Dicky away from the home and put him under special care. Anytime he started to throw a tantrum, or began to hurt himself in some way, they would put him in this room until the crying and whining stopped. The only reinforcement the boy received was that he could leave the room and they would open the door. Shortly over time, the tantrums began to dissipate after about 3 months. After the tantrums became less frequent, the family could see him an hour at a time. Whenever he was able to go home at certain times, they had to reinforce operant condition on Dicky to keep the temper tantrums to a minimum. If Dicky started to throw some sort of tantrum or leave his bed in the middle of the night, the parents would tell him to go back to bed. If he didn’t do it, the parents would warn him that they would have to shut his door and put him back to bed. The parents were given a certain time frame in which they had to keep the door closed. However, if the tantrum had ended, they could open the door for him again. After 6 days, the behavior was extinguished.

As the visits became more personal overtime, the specialists had to get Dicky to wear his glasses. However, Dicky wasn’t a big fan of wearing them nor did he like physical contact near his head. First, they conditioned Dicky to go to a bowl at the sound of a toy by put candy in the bowl with the sound of the toy. Next, they continued by procedure by placing glasses that had no prescription lenses in them or fake lenses. Anytime Dicky would get close to them, put them on, or hold the glasses, he would be reinforced with the candy again. While this worked at first, it started to diminish, and the effects of the candy were not reinforcing enough for Dicky. Eventually, they had to change the reward for his behavior with different types of food such as ice cream. This drastically changed his behavior, for he was much more likely to pick up the glasses and eventually got to the point where he was putting them on correctly.

Next, they had to deal with Dicky’s new behavior he obtained, which was tossing his glasses away from him without any anticipation. To begin the extinction process of this behavior, as quoted from the article, “Dick was put in his room for ten minutes following each glasses-throw, or if a tantrum developed, until it ceased. Throwing the glasses decreased to zero in five days” (Wolf, Risley & Mees 1963, p. 191).

There was a small portion of the article that talked about Dicky’s verbal progress over time, but it only showed minor cases of operant conditioning such as, “The attendant would say, ‘This is a cat’, ‘Now saw cat’…whereupon she would say, ‘Good’, or ‘That’s right’ and give him a bite of his meal” (Wolf, Risley & Mees 1963, p. 192). This was one of the most basic operant conditioning techniques one could use, and it helped Dicky out in this area.

Last, but not least, there was one more behavior that Dicky needing improving on: His eating manners. Dicky would steal food from others’ plates and would eat with his fingers instead of silverware and so on. To remedy this, Wolf, Risley and Mees (1963) stated, “We attempted to deal with these behaviours by having the attendant remove Dicky’s plate for a few minutes...and, after a warning, remove Dicky from the dining room” (p. 192). Of course, overtime, this behavior was also disposed of.

Now that we have a brief understanding of the experiment, let’s take a critical look at what could be changed. For starters, let’s look at what they did correctly. They did a good job executing basic operant conditioning techniques without giving into the pressure. The parents, as well, did a decent job maintaining operant conditioning techniques when it came to bedtime or table manners. There didn’t seem to be any sort of confliction with the experimenting team with following through each condition, except for some poor specialist choice that had trouble getting Dicky to correct his behavior (during the glasses experiment). Wolf, Risley, and Mees (1963) wrote, “Our shaper met with considerable difficulty in getting Dicky to wear the glassless frames in the proper manner” (p. 190). While the shaper may be to blame, the child in the experiment alone was very difficult to cooperate with, but he was most likely unaware of his behavior in the situation due to his current age and psychological state. However, the shaper could’ve changed his techniques earlier in order to accommodate for the new situation he was dealing with. Luckily, over time, they figured out that they had to take baby steps for him to finally grab and/or wear the glasses, such as just holding them or getting close to them. My only complaint with the experiment was the use of the clicker. It seemed like the clicker served no beneficial purpose in the experiment. Sure, they used basic classical conditioning techniques to get Dicky to go to the bowl when he heard the toy, but I’m not sure what the overall reasoning behind that is. The only thing that comes to mind was to see if he can learn from a basic type of conditioning, but I feel like it didn’t seem relevant to resolving his behavioral issues.

The last thing I would like to mention about this article would be their overall method of recording data. Although I didn’t state it above, I still think it’s worth noting. They used cumulative records throughout the course of the experiment, typically counting a temper tantrum as a response on the graph. They presented the data fairly well throughout the paper and it helped show progress within the child. They were able to clearly explain each experiment and the behaviors that followed the conditioning occurred. Since this was from a journal, I would assume there would be more info, but the resource only offered a certain number of pages. Since it was only a certain number of pages, there wasn’t an overall conclusion about how operant conditioning can help children with rather unhealthy behaviors. Even though it was only one individual, they could’ve given some more insight about the overall effects of operant conditioning in behavioral adjustment. At the end of the day, the study was well done, and they were able to execute the plan they were hoping to accomplish.