NONCONTINGENT REINFORCEMENT: AN INAPPROPRIATE DESCRIPTION OF TIME‐BASED SCHEDULES THAT REDUCE BEHAVIOR

Abstract

Several articles published recently in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis demonstrate that fixed-time (FT) schedules can be used to reduce troublesome behaviors (for a review of these and related articles, see Tucker, Sigafoos, & Bushell, 1998). In the first article in this series, Vollmer, Iwata, Zarcone, Smith, and Mazaleski (1993) demonstrated through functional analysis that the self-injurious behavior of 3 women was maintained by attention. Subsequently, they reduced the self-injurious behavior of those women by delivering attention under an FT schedule. They referred to the FT schedule as a noncontingent reinforcement procedure, and the name unfortunately has stuck. For example, in the most recent article in the series, Carr, Bailey, Ecot, Lucker, and Weil (1998) indicate that ‘‘In a noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) procedure, the reinforcer responsible for maintaining a problem behavior is delivered on a fixed-time (FT) or variable-time schedule’’ (p. 313). It is standard practice in behavior analysis to define reinforcement functionally, that is, as an operation or process in which the occurrence of a behavior is followed by a change in the environment (reinforcer) and as a result such behavior subsequently increases in rate, or is otherwise strengthened (e.g., Catania, 1991; Chance, 1998; Miltenberger, 1997). Operations that have other effects characteristically are not referred to as reinforcement. If this convention is followed, delivery of attention under an FT schedule did not constitute reinforcement in