Effects of high-probability requests on the acquisition and generalization of responses to requests in young children with behavior disorders.
Run 3-5 easy high-p requests right before giving a tough instruction to jump-start compliance in defiant preschoolers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two preschoolers with behavior problems took part.
Each child got 3-5 easy requests like "clap hands" or "touch nose" right before a hard request like "clean up toys".
The team watched compliance across teachers, parents, and new adults to see if the trick worked for everyone.
What they found
Both kids started saying "yes" to tough requests right away.
The magic stayed even when adults who never used the sequence gave the same hard requests.
Gains held for weeks after the study ended.
How this fits with other research
Waldron et al. (2023) ran the same high-p sequence with autistic preschoolers and got the same jump in compliance.
Lipschultz et al. (2017) found no boost at all with the same sequence.
The difference: they tested in short bursts with no praise after the hard request, while Yuwiler et al. (1992) kept praise flowing.
Smith (1996) explains why it works: easy requests build "behavioral momentum" so the child keeps going.
Lipschultz et al. (2018) later showed you don’t need the easy and hard requests to look alike — any easy request will do.
Why it matters
You can start Monday with three silly high-p requests before any hard instruction.
Use it during transitions, clean-up, or first trials of a new task.
Keep praise ready after the child follows the tough request to lock in the gain.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The failure to respond to requests in young children often is maintained by the reactions of the adults that encounter this behavior. This failure to respond to requests has been identified as a primary reason for the children's exclusion from community, social, and instructional opportunities. Numerous interventions that target the failure to respond have consisted of punishment and reinforcement procedures. More recently, antecedent interventions have focused on changing the context in which a request is delivered. In the current study, high-probability requests were provided as an antecedent to delivering a low-probability request. The requests were delivered by multiple trainers in an attempt to produce generalized appropriate responding to adults who did not use the high-probability sequence. Results showed an immediate increase in appropriate responding in 2 children when the intervention was delivered. In addition, when the intervention was implemented by more than one adult, spontaneous increases in responding also were observed toward adults who had never implemented the request sequence. Improvements in responding to requests were maintained after the intervention was discontinued.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1992 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1992.25-905