Notes

third procedure, differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) delivers reinforcement for any appropriate behavior whenever an undesirable behavior is not emitted during a specific period of time. A broad range of appropriate behaviors may be reinforced, as long as the behavior selected for reduction does not occur. To apply the DRO procedure, an interval of time is selected and any appropriate behavior exhibited at the end of that interval is reinforced, as long as the unwanted behavior did not occur. If not, the reinforcer is not delivered and the interval is reset to try and bring out an appropriate behavior in a new interval of time. Most applications of DRO involve a fixed DRO schedule of reinforcement in which the interval of time remains the same across trials. For example, a fixed DRO of 1 minute means that reinforcement is delivered every 1 minute and contingently upon the absence of the unwanted behavior. Alternatively, a variable DRO schedule of reinforcement may be used, in which the interval of time is set to vary across trials. For example, a variable DRO schedule might consist of 15, 30, 45, 60, and 90 seconds, arranged to occur in a random order.