Boosting Speed & Accuracy with Reinforcement Schedule Parameters
April 2, 2023
Question: This can this be added to a reinforcement schedule to limit (that’s a clue) the amount of time a client has to emit the correct response.
Answer: Limited hold.
I like to think of the limited hold as another parameter or another criterion in order to get reinforcement. In this case, it’s creating a parameter of limited time. When you set a rate or even an interval criteria for reinforcement, that can lead to the possibility of reinforcing a correct behavior, but a correct behavior that might take all day, so to speak. The limited hold sets a parameter, which the client has to not only respond correctly, but they also have to respond correctly quickly, meaning within that specific limited hold interval or limited hold period of time. If they don’t correctly respond within the limited time, no reinforcement can be earned. Even if they answer correctly, if it passes that amount of limited hold time, no reinforcement.
Let’s see what this would look like, for example, with a tacting colors program: let’s say the schedule is FR-5 limited hold 30 seconds. The client would need to tact five colors correctly and also do that within 30 seconds. You would impose that limited hold for this particular schedule because maybe, the client just takes way too long to get those answers out, maybe they dilly dally or are easily distracted or non-compliant, and hopefully, that limited hold criteria is going to motivate quicker, faster responding.
With interval schedules, it’s going to be a little bit different. For example, that same tacting program on an FI-5 limited hold of 30 seconds means that the client would be reinforced for the first correct tact after five minutes passes, but also not much longer than 30 seconds after that five minutes. Otherwise, we could again just be waiting all day. As long as it’s after five seconds, whichever is the first correct response, that could be tomorrow. But that limited hold lets us know five minutes passes, the first correct response it occurs, but it cannot be beyond that 30-second limited hold, time period parameter. This is something that can be used for building fluency in general. What does fluency mean? It means increasing speed and accuracy. Just a basic intermittent schedule of reinforcement that ensures the accuracy piece, but throwing that limited hold in, gives us that speed component.
