Effects of systematically depriving access to computer-based stimuli on choice responding with individuals with intellectual disabilities

Three adults with intellectual disabilities participated to investigate the effects of reinforcer deprivation on choice responding. The experimenter identified the most preferred audio-visual (A-V) stimulus and the least preferred visual-only stimulus for each participant. Participants did not have access to the A-V stimulus for 5 min, 5 and 24 h. Following deprivation, responses produced 1-s access to either stimulus on a concurrent continuous reinforcement continuous reinforcement schedule. A combination multi-element/multiple-baseline-across-participants design showed that two participants emitted fewer responses for the preferred A-V stimulus following 5-min deprivation relative to 5- and 24-h deprivation. Higher values of deprivation did not increase the proportion of choice responses allocated to the A-V stimulus for any participant and could be attributed to preference shifts during the study. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.