Assessment of impulsivity and the development of self-control in students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Kids with ADHD can learn to wait 24 hours for a better prize if you grow the delay slowly and keep the prize exciting.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three elementary students with ADHD played a computer game. They picked between a small candy now or a bigger candy later.
The researchers slowly stretched the wait time from 0 to 24 hours. They also kept the candy rate or flavor high so the kids stayed interested.
What they found
All three kids learned to wait a full day for the bigger treat. They still picked the large reward even when the game switched to new candy types.
The kids kept the skill two months later with no extra teaching.
How this fits with other research
Pilowsky et al. (1998) warned that partial reinforcement frustrates ADHD kids and kills persistence. The new study avoids this trap by keeping reinforcement rich while only the delay grows.
Hansen et al. (1989) showed typical kids under age seven only notice reward size, not delay. Cullinan et al. (2001) proves you can still teach delay tolerance to older ADHD students.
Leezenbaum et al. (2019) extended the same choice game to preschoolers with autism and found they also struggle to wait, but for different reasons. The teaching package may need tweaks for younger or ASD populations.
Why it matters
You can copy this in any classroom. Start with tiny waits, keep the reinforcer strong, and stretch the delay each day. In two weeks you can move from 30 seconds to hours. Parents love hearing their child can wait until after dinner for tablet time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We examined a combined approach of manipulating reinforcer dimensions and delay fading to promote the development of self-control with 3 students diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. First, we administered a brief computer-based assessment to determine the relative influence of reinforcer rate (R), reinforcer quality (Q), reinforcer immediacy (I), and effort (E) on the students' choices between concurrently presented math problems. During each session, one of these dimensions was placed in direct competition with another dimension (e.g., RvI involving math problem alternatives associated with high-rate delayed reinforcement vs. low-rate immediate reinforcement), with all possible pairs of dimensions presented across the six assessment conditions (RvQ, RvI, RvE, QvI, QvE, IvE). The assessment revealed that the choices of all 3 students were most influenced by immediacy of reinforcement, reflecting impulsivity. We then implemented a self-control training procedure in which reinforcer immediacy competed with another influential dimension (RvI or Qvl), and the delay associated with the higher rate or quality reinforcer alternative was progressively increased. The students allocated the majority of their time to the math problem alternatives yielding more frequent (high-rate) or preferred (high-quality) reinforcement despite delays of up to 24 hr. Subsequent readministration of portions of the assessment showed that self-control transferred across untrained dimensions of reinforcement.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2001 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2001.34-397