Increasing Praise Delivery Within Dorms of a Juvenile Justice Facility.
Quick BST lifts staff praise in juvenile dorms, yet youth disruption stays put without heavier supports.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Luna et al. (2022) worked in a juvenile justice dorm. They wanted more staff praise.
Trainers gave a short talk and showed a video. Then they watched staff for changes.
Kids in the dorm had mixed diagnoses. The team tracked staff praise and resident disruption.
What they found
Praise rose a little after the session. Disruption stayed flat.
Staff still praised far less than workers in a calm dorm. The quick fix was only half a fix.
How this fits with other research
Morosohk et al. (2025) used the same brief BST at the same site. They taught perfect room searches. Searches stayed sharp even when no boss was watching. The method works for clear, check-list tasks.
Baum (2002) ran a twin study: BST plus video lifted staff social talk, yet youth behavior did not budge. Two decades apart, both papers show the same pattern—staff change, kids don’t.
Ramer et al. (1977) proved that youth-rated social skills can be trained fast. Their gains held without extra help. Odessa’s mixed results hint that praise alone may be too small a slice of the youth-preferred package.
Why it matters
You can use a 20-minute BST burst to lift staff praise, but don’t bank on it to calm the unit. Pair praise with resident-level skills or denser reinforcement if you want behavior change. Track both sides of the interaction—staff and youth—to see when real peace begins.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Researchers have shown that adolescents in residential treatment facilities benefit from behavior-analytic intervention. However, it remains unclear whether practitioners can apply behavioral interventions to increase staff members' appropriate interactions with residents within a juvenile justice facility. In Study 1, researchers compared direct measures of staff behavior in three target dorms (D1, D2, and D3) containing high levels of resident disruptive behavior to a dorm (D4) with consistently low levels of resident disruptive behavior. Results indicated that staff members in the target dorms engaged in significantly higher rates of reprimands and negative statements than in D4. In Study 2, researchers used didactic and video instruction to train staff members in D1, D2, and D3 to increase contingent and noncontingent praise delivery. Results indicated praise delivery by staff members increased slightly in each target dorm. In Study 3, researchers first evaluated the extent to which measures of staff members' and residents' behaviors improved following training within each dorm. Subsequently, researchers compared the post-training behavioral measures from D1, D2 and D3 to D4 to determine the extent to which staff behavior in the training dorms was distinguishable from D4. Results of Study 3 indicated that one or more staff behaviors improved in each training dorm. Nevertheless, residents' disruptive behavior was unchanged in each target dorm. In addition, staff members' behavior in each target dorm continued to be distinguishable from staff members' behavior in D4 on most behavioral measures.
Behavior modification, 2022 · doi:10.1177/0145445520982976