A review of correspondence training: Suggestions for a revival.
Correspondence-training research flat-lined in 1992—start it again by reinforcing kids’ own rule statements on thin, random schedules.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The author read every correspondence-training study from 1974 through 2001.
He saw the work stop cold around 1992.
The paper lists what was missing and tells researchers how to restart.
What they found
Correspondence training faded out just when we needed it most.
Kids still say one thing and do another, but we quit studying how to fix it.
The fix, he says, is to mix old compliance tricks with new self-instruction tools.
How this fits with other research
Lord et al. (1986) already showed the maintenance trick: after kids match words and deeds, thin reinforcement to mystery doses and keep praising their rule statements.
That 1986 study is the exact kind of work the review says we stopped doing.
McIntire et al. (1987) gave us the rule-governed toolbox, yet we still let the line of research die.
Together the three papers form a bridge: theory (1987), first data (1986), and wake-up call (2002).
Why it matters
If you run social-skills or self-monitoring programs, you are doing correspondence training whether you name it or not.
Add a quick verbal rule check at the end of each session.
Reinforce the rule statement, not just the action.
Then thin the praise so the kid can’t guess when it’s coming.
You just brought a dead procedure back to life.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Doing what is promised or accurately reporting what has been done increases with correspondence training. Early research showed that training produced positive correlations between saying and doing, but did not always produce useful generalized correspondence to new, untrained say-do sequences (Baer, 1990). Recent research (reviewed here in detail) questioned early procedures and introduced new issues: functional criteria, functional verbal responses, baseline measures, and response chains in correspondence training. Correspondence research was almost abandoned after 1992. This review suggests new procedures and directions to revive this important research area. Specific suggestions are to combine correspondence procedures with similar features from ongoing research in compliance and self-instruction; consider important guidelines for future research derived from recent studies; consider interactions between applied and basic research with correspondence issues; compare correspondence between different participant cohorts; examine the use of descriptive and functional terms; examine punishment procedures; and provide a behavioral analysis of the relations between verbal and nonverbal behaviors related to correspondence.
The Behavior analyst, 2002 · doi:10.1007/BF03392045