Rate of Auditing Self and Coactor Performance Scores as a Supplementary Monitor of Reinforcer Effectiveness

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Abstract
The effectiveness of performance feedback and back-up reinforcers is ordinarily monitored by their combined effect on the target behavior. Supplementary monitors of reinforcer effectiveness can also be useful when, for example, the target behavior is slow to change. In this study, the supplementary monitor was the rate at which children from an institutional contingency management program pressed buttons that allowed them access to their own (self audit) or another person's (co-actor audit) performance scores. The feasibility of this supplementary monitor was indicated by the findings that children used the audit apparatus and that their scores, rather than the novelty of the procedure, were reinforcers. The procedure was useful to the treatment team because it showed which of the children's daily scores were most reinforcing and who checked their scores. Although children made both self and coactor checks, self scores were usually more reinforcing. The audit as a supplementary monitor offers the advantages of being easy to measure, of providing information on the reinforcing value of social stimuli (coactor audits), and which type of feedback is most reinforcing.