BEHAVIORAL OBSERVATIONS BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER BRIEF ISOLATION (TIME-OUT)

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Abstract
Adult, chronic psychotic inpatients (4) were observed before, during and after the contingent application of time-out. Time-out was a part of their individual treatment programs, and consisted of placement in a furnitureless room for 15 min. Observations were made of 16 behaviors grouped into 7 categories; these categories included both consequated and nonconsequated behaviors. Observation sessions lasted for 15 min with interval recording of each behavior for the first 10 s of every 30 s block. Results for each subject were analyzed by means of 3-way factorial ANOVAs [Analyses of Variance]. Three subjects exhibited significant differences in response frequency before, during and after time-out that were consistent across all instances of their being placed in time-out. The particular behaviors that reliably varied with the observation conditions for 1 subject were not the same as those which reliably varied for another subject. Two subjects significantly increased the frequency of their consequated responses during time-out despite the fact that time-out was effective as measured by a significantly lower emission rate after time-out compared to before time-out.

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