The Effects of Reinforcer Distribution on Performance and Preference of Children with Intellectual Disabilities According to Different Levels of Task Difficulty

The effectiveness of accumulated reinforcement on participants with developmental disabilities has been emphasized over distributed reinforcement, but the generalized effect of accumulated reinforcement is hampered in part by lack of controlling task or participant characteristics. The present study evaluated if the performance of, and preference for distributed and accumulated reinforcement were different between two task difficulties of a visuospatial working memory task. Participants were children with intellectual disabilities who were between 7 and 13 years old. 77 participants conducted four sets of visuospatial working memory task(distributed and accumulated reinforcement in an easy task, distributed and accumulated reinforcement in a difficult task). The performance was evaluated by accuracy rate, response rate per minute, and correct response rate per minute. Preference was evaluated by three-point likert scale and selection ratio between distributed and accumulated reinforcement. The increase of response rate per minute and correct response rate per minute in the accumulated reinforcement was greater than the distributed reinforcement for the difficult task, and there was no difference in preference. Findings in the current study suggest that children with intellectual disabilities performed more efficiently at accumulated reinforcement condition, which is only applicable to difficult task.