Behavioral Allocation and Choice Processes in Mental Retardation

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): These P01 projects are unified by a shared focus on behavioral processes involved in the allocation of behavior - choice-making - among individuals with intellectual disabilities. They are also bound by a common effort to translate extensive basic laboratory research findings into effective, individualized motivational support to individuals with intellectual disabilities. Through application of quantitative approaches to behavioral allocation, our goal is to advance understanding of the variables that underlie the types of choices made by persons with intellectual disabilities. A longterm goal is to develop a technology for teaching choice-making that benefits the individual, the family, and the larger social context. Toward this end, each project will include both basic research on advanced quantitative methods to problems relevant to mental retardation and applied research to validate the resulting techniques in ecologically valid teaching settings. These themes are explored in four projects and supported by three cores. Project 1 emphasizes basic choice processes in behavioral allocation and persistence in persons with severe intellectual disabilities. Project 2 adopts a behavioral economics approach to the management of motivational variables for persons with intellectual disabilities. Project 3 utilizes signal detection theory in the quantitative analyses of motivational variables. Project 4 applies quantitative analyses of behavioral choice to situations that involve social reinforcers (those mediated by another person) and social contexts (those marked by cues for of social reinforcers). The projects are further unified by three research cores that provide essential, cost-effective services. TheTechnical Support core centralizes and renders more efficient the common technical support needs of the program (e.g., computer programming, database construction and management, statistical analysis, apparatus maintenance). Throughout these projects, the Participant Services core assists in subject recruitment, diagnostic and psychometric evaluation, scheduling, and continuity of participation.