2025 Theses Doctoral

The Effects of Reinforcement for Collaboration in Preschoolers with Disabilities

Miller, Rebecca

Collaboration is a required skill for individuals to engage in, from childhood and throughout adulthood. Collaboration is necessary for children to successfully play team sports, for students to work on group projects in college, and for adults to work productively on team projects in their professional careers. In education, collaboration occurs when two or more children work together to achieve a shared goal. Collaborative behaviors include communication, social interactions, and joint decision making. Research has demonstrated positive effects on collaboration in education (Barfield, 2016). However, there is a need to investigate the developmental trajectory of which reinforcement for collaboration can be established and any positive impacts of the cusp on socialization. Further, more research needs to be conducted on the effects of reinforcement for collaboration for children with disabilities.

In Experiment 1, the researcher established reinforcement for collaboration in preschoolers with disabilities and evaluated the effects on learning, collaborative behaviors during a shared task, vocal verbal operants during a shared task, and joint attention with peers. Using multiple collaborative activities through a Social Listener Reinforcement (SLR) protocol, the participants demonstrated reinforcement for collaboration, as evident by increases in collaborative behaviors and vocal verbal operants to peers during a collaborative activity. The participants also demonstrated some increases in joint attention to peers and learned faster under collaborative contingencies.

In Experiment 2, the researcher extended Experiment 1 by shortening the intervention, changing the learning measure, and adding more social validity measures. Experiment 2 evaluated the effects of establishing conditioned reinforcement for collaboration on collaborative behaviors during a shared task, vocal verbal operants during a shared task, learning tacts in small group instruction, social skills, and preference for completing activities alone or with a peer.

The results demonstrated a shortened intervention moderately increased collaborative and joint engagement behaviors during a floor puzzle and moderately increase the amount of vocal verbal operants emitted to a peer. The results also demonstrated that following intervention, the participants selected to complete activities with peers, versus alone, and learned faster in small group instruction. Findings from these experiments are discussed regarding educational significance for children with disabilities.