Nonexclusionary timeout: maintenance of appropriate behavior across settings.

A recentpaper by Foxx and Shapiro (1978) used a nonexclusionary timeoutprocedure to reduce inappropriate behaviors in a mentally retarded population. The present study was designed to replicate these findings, to examine the utility o f modifying the basic reinforcement schedule of the original study, and to demonstrate control across settings and maladaptive behaviors using a multiple baseline design. The subject was a 19-year-old severely retarded male, and the design consisted of implementing the program sequentially across three settings. Following initial baseline in each setting, a discriminative cue was provided to the client, and a DRO schedule was instituted. Any occurrence of target disruptive behaviors resulted in removal of the discriminative cue and interruption of the reinforcement schedule. After the intervention program was implemented in each setting, inappropriate behaviors decreased to virtually zero rates of occurrence. These findings indicate that a signaled timeout can be employed successfully in more than one setting and that it can be used in conjunction with DRO reinforcement schedule. The advantages of mediating transfer of behavioral improvements with portable discriminative cues were discussed.