Many children are exposed to excessively technology. Such use of technology may lead to health issues including obesity, attention deficits, and sleep disorders. Research has shown that parameters of reinforcement, such as quality and delay, may influence how children allocate their preferences. One way to drive preference away from high-tech toys may be to arrange delays to reinforcement following such selections and immediate reinforcement for an alternative response. In Experiment 1, four subjects who preferred high-tech leisure items over low-tech leisure items were identified through the pair-stimulus preference assessments. The results of Experiment 2 indicated that all subjects were sensitive to delay to reinforcement. When delays were implemented following selection of high-tech items, preference shifted from high-tech to low-tech leisure items at different delays.

To teach operant behaviors to individuals with severe disabilities, stimulus preference assessment (SPA) methods have been developed to accurately identify stimuli that may function as reinforcers. Previous researchers have used multiple-stimulus preference assessments without replacement (MSWO) effectively over a short time period to teach target behaviors to individuals with disabilities. The present study investigated the long-term effects of incorporating brief MSWO preference assessments into the instructional routine for students with severe disabilities on individualized education plan reading goal/objective progress. This was done by investigating the effectiveness of incorporating brief MSWO preference assessments by comparing reading goal progress when a random reinforcer is available, teacher- selected reinforcer is available, or a student-selected reinforcer (via a brief MSWO preference assessment) is available over several weeks for students with severe disabilities in a secondary public school classroom setting.

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