CJUS 840-DISCUSSION 1-REPLY 1

The response must be a minimum of 150 words and a minimum of 2 references.
Textbook-Territo, L., & Sewell, J.D. (2019). Stress management in law enforcement(4th ed.). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. ISBN: 9781531015756.

*****LAUREN****
There are unique stress-producing aspects that are withing policing that could be experienced by some and not by others within the same locations (Territo & Sewell, 2019). This is because the career path of police officers will be exposed to different types of violence. This means that their decisions could possibly determine the differences between life and death of not only themselves but of those who are around them (Territo & Sewell, 2019). Stress Management According to Stress Management in Law Enforcement by Leonard Territo and James Sewell, some officers may experience stress due to aspects that pertain to the split-second decisions that they have to make, the threats to officer safety, witnessing others suffer, and having to understand how fragile humans are (Territo & Sewell, 2019). In addition, police officers may not receive positive support or feedback from the public (Territo & Sewell, 2019). When police officers commit heroic actions and when they risk their lives every day and the public is not supportive, this can create a lot of stress and can be disheartening. This can then lead to a chronic stress condition and impact the flight or fight response of the police officers when they are in high stress situations (Territo & Sewell, 2019). According to DECORE-21: Assessment of Occupational Stress in Police Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Original Model by Talavera-Velasco, that to be able reduce stress from their high stress situations there are multiple of steps that can be taken (Talavera-Velasco, 2018). For instance, the police officers can have training sessions that practice and prepare the officers for high stress situations where their decisions will determine the result of life or death of not only themselves but of those who are around them (Talavera-Velasco, 2018). By getting the officers prepared of what could happen when they are in the field can help build confidence, which will then promote the officers to stay calm in stressful situations (Talavera-Velasco, 2018). Another method is teaching police officers strong communication skills (Talavera-Velasco, 2018). This means with each other and with mental health specialist (Talavera-Velasco, 2018). It can be hard to talk to a mental health specialist, but if officers understand this this is not a sign of weakness and that it is a resource that can be used to help them (Talavera-Velasco, 2018). By having strong communication skills with fellow officers, this can decrease stress levels because through strong communication skills, the officers are able to work more effectively and efficiently (Talavera-Velasco, 2018). Biblical Worldview According to Philippians 4:6, it teaches to not be anxious about anything because through prayer and thanksgiving God will take care of everything (New King James Bible, 1895, Philippians 4:6). This correlates with this discussion board because those who are in high stress situations can turn towards God. According to Psalm 94:19, it teaches that when an individual experiences stress and when they turn towards God, He will bring joy to their soul (New King James Bible, 1895, Psalm 94:19). This correlates with the discussion board because by turning to God, He will take away the anxieties of those who ask for help because they are filled with His joy.

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Week 9 Article Review

Article reference using APA format (5 points):
Summarize the purpose of the study (at least 3 sentences 10 points):
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Self-management within a token economy for students with

learning disabilities

ArticleinResearch in Developmental Disabilities May 1997

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Pergamon
Research in Developmental Disabilities, Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 167-178, 1997

0891-4222/97 $17.00 + .00

PII S0891-4222(96)00045-5

Self-Management Within a Classroom
Token Economy for Students With

Learning Disabilities

Albert R. Cavalier, Ralph P. Ferretti, and Amelia F. Hodges

The University of Delaware

Students with disabilities who are served in restrictive educational settings often

display inappropriate behavior that serves to preclude their integration into the

mainstream. One approach to managing di~cult behavior is a levels system (Smith

& Farrell, 1993), which O’pically consists of a hierarchy of levels in which students”

must meet increasingly demanding standards of behavior before advancing

through the hierarchy. In the present study, two middle-school students with

learning disabilities participated in a classroom-wide token economy based on a

levels system. The levels system, which was used in a self-contained classroom,

targeted the acquisition and maintenance of academic skills and social behaviors

with the goal of integrating these students into an inclusive classroom. The m’o

participants showed little or no progress within the levels system because of a very

high rate of inappropriate verbalizations. Therefore, a self-management system

that involved training on the accuracy of self-recording these verbalizations was

added to the levels system for these students. In addition, the investigator dis-

cussed with these students the consequences ~f inappropriate behavior and so-

cially appropriate behavioral alternatives. A multiple-baseline-across-subjects

experimental design revealed that the intervention resulted in a substantive reduc-

tion in inappropriate verbalizations, as well as greater progress through the levels

system. Implications of these findings Jor the use of self-recording within u token

economy, the importance of students’ accuraev ~f self-recording, and methodolog-
ical issues are discussed. 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd

The order of authorship for the first two authors was determined randomly.

Amel ia E. Hodges is a teacher at Glasgow High School in Newark. DE.
Requests for reprints should be sent to either Albert R. Cavalier or Ralph P. Ferretti at the

Department of Educational Studies, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716.

167

168 A. R. Cavalier, R. P. Ferretti, and A. E. Hodges

Most instructional approaches for children with learning problems place the
primary emphasis on external agents (teachers, parents, counselors, and other
professionals) to arrange the instructional conditions, monitor student perfor-
mance, and implement appropriate classroom contingencies. Kazdin (1975)
identified many potential drawbacks to the heavy reliance on external agents,
including: (a) the external agent may not notice many important student behav-
iors, especially when the agent is simultaneously monitoring many children in
classroom situations; (b) the external agent is associated with the contingencies
and, therefore, becomes discriminative for the occurrence of the desired behav-
iors; and (c) the desired behaviors may not transfer to situations in which
externally-administered contingencies have not been in effect. As a consequence
of these limitations, and motivated by the movement to educate individuals with
disabilities in inclusive settings, there has been increasing interest in the devel-
opment of procedures that reduce students’ dependence upon highly structured
learning programs and increase their capacity for self-regulation (Ferretti, Cav-
alier, Murphy, & Murphy, 1993; Ryan, Weed, & Short, 1986).

The training of self-management skills holds the promise of reducing students’
dependence on others and ensuring greater control over their own learning. These
skills include the self-definition of the to-be-accomplished goal, self-recording of
information about task performance, self-evaluation of task performance relative to
self-defined or externally-established standards, and self-reinforcement (Ferretti et
al., 1993). Each of these components has been the focus of previous interventions,
either in isolation or as part of a multicomponential intervention designed to affect
behavior change. Self-recording procedures have received particular attention be-
cause of the well-documented therapeutic concomitant known as reactivity (Lloyd
& Landrum, 1990; Nelson & Hayes, 1981). Reactivity refers to changes in a client’s
behavior that arise from observing and recording that behavior. While the theoretical
mechanisms that underlie reactivity effects have been the subject of considerable
discussion (Ferretti et al., 1993; Nelson & Hayes, 1981), the effects nevertheless
have been demonstrated across many different behavioral domains (see Lloyd &
Landrum, 1990).

The effects of self-recording on the attention-to-task of students with learning
disabilities have been comprehensively studied (Hallahan & Sapona, 1983;
Kneedler & Hallahan, 1984; Lloyd, Bateman, Landrum, & Hallahan, 1989;
Snider, 1987). However, the investigation of its use with other classroom
behaviors, especially disruptive or inappropriate behavior, has not. been as
extensive. In one experiment, Broden, Hall, and Mitts (1971) obtained a 48%
increase in study behavior with an intervention package consisting of self-
recording and praise from a counselor. In a second experiment, self-recording
alone resulted in an initial decrease in inappropriate verbalizations, but this
effect gradually dissipated back to pre-treatment levels. In both experiments,
student recordings of the target behavior differed markedly from the recordings
of an independent observer. Thus, the effects of self-recording on the disruptive
behavior of students with learning disabilities were equivocal.

Self-Management and Token Economy 169

While positive results have sometimes been obtained with inaccurate sell’-
recording (Ferretti et al., 1993; Hallahan & Sapona, 1983), reactivity to self-
recording may be enhanced when accuracy is high (McLaughlin, Burgess, &
Sackville-West, 1981). Accuracy may be especially important when the target
skill is particularly difficult for a student to perform (O’Leary & Dubey, 1979),
when a student is having trouble discriminating instances of the target behavior
from non-instances (Snider, 1987), or when the self-recording activity is not
intrusive enough to engage the student’s attention (Loper & Murphy, 1985).
While behavior may improve in the absence of accurate self-recording, grossly
inaccurate self-recording raises a fundamental question about the degree to
which the independent variable (self-recording) is responsible for behavior
change (Snider, 1987), that is, the inference that self-recording is responsible for
behavior change is not warranted when self-recording accuracy is low.

A self-management package might be particularly effective as an adjunctive
intervention for students with learning disabilities who fail to keep pace with
their peers in group motivational systems such as classroom token economies
and assertive discipline programs. Programs such as these place an especially
heavy emphasis on external control and thereby minimize students’ responsi-
bility for managing their own behavior. For example, Knapczyk and Livingston
(1973) observed improvements in the reading accuracy of junior high school
students with mental retardation who were participating in a classroom token
economy. On a non-academic task, Seymour and Stokes (1976) obtained in-
creases in work productivity after self-recording was added to an existing token
economy.

In this study, we sought to evaluate the effects of an intervention consisting
of self-recording, discussions about the consequences of inappropriate behavior.
and praise for appropriate behavior on two students with learning disabilities.
The motivational system in effect in the classroom was a token economy called
the levels system (Smith & Farrell, 1993) that employed the acquisition of
points. The purpose of this system was to strengthen appropriate academic and
social behaviors identified in students’ IEPs. The overarching goal in this
self-contained classroom was to integrate students into classrooms with non-
disabled peers.

Both students selected for participation in this study failed to make progress
in the classroom-wide levels system because of excessive inappropriate verbal-
izations. Therefore, the intervention was developed as an adjunct to the levels
system that could provide heightened individualization lbr student needs. The
goal of the intervention was to reduce the occurrence of students’ inappropriate
verbalizations and thereby hasten their progress within the classroom-wide
token economy. The intervention included training self-recording to a criterion
level of accuracy.

170 A. R. Cavalier, R. P. Ferretti, and A. E. Hodges

M E T H O D

Participants

The two students who participated in this study were males aged 13 years, 11
months and 13 years, 5 months (referred to as S1 and $2, respectively) who
were enrolled in a combined seventh and eighth grade self-contained class. S 1
performed at a grade equivalent of 4.2 in reading and 5.3 in mathematics on the
Wide Range Achievement Test; $2 performed at a grade equivalent of 4.3 in
reading and 5.7 in mathematics on the same instrument. Full scale IQ scores on
the WISC-R were 83 and 96, respectively. They had no known physical or
sensory disabilities or medical problems. They also met the state’s classification
criteria for students with learning disabilities and were placed in a self-contained
special education classroom in a public middle school.

In the classroom-wide levels system, points were assigned by the teacher in
25-minute intervals throughout the school day, contingent upon performance of
different levels of behaviors in the following categories: being present in the
appropriate area, attention-to-task, use of appropriate language, positive inter-
action with others, and compliance with instructions. Points were used to
motivate progress through each of six levels and could be exchanged for a
variety of primary and secondary reinforcers, including activity reinforcers.
Different students had to earn a criterion number of points each day for that day
to “count” toward the next level.

The general criteria for achieving successive levels after Level 1 were as
follows: Level 2 = 5 days of criterion performance; Level 3 = 10 days of
criterion performance; Level 4 = 15 days of criterion performance; Level 5 = 20
days of criterion performance; and Level 6 = 30 days of criterion performance
of which the last 15 days had to be consecutive. A student continued at a given
level until s/he met the performance criterion for the next level. Classroom
management and motivational systems that are structured with a system of
performance-and-reward levels such as this one are “widely used, although not
widely researched” in elementary and secondary classrooms (Scheuermann &
Webber, 1996, p. 12).

The students were chosen for this study because they were not advancing in
the levels system. At the end of the 6th week of participation in this system, the
majority of the students in class had progressed to various points between the
end of Level 2 and the beginning of Level 4. The two students had achieved only
3 criterion days at Level 1. The teacher described these two students as
exhibiting the following characteristics: high levels of distractibility, strong
sensitivity to criticism from others, poor impulse control, and difficulty in
understanding and applying abstract concepts. The most prominent and prob-
lematic characteristic was a stable and very high level of inappropriate verbal-
izations, because it interrupted instructional activities and thereby prevented the
progress of these students through the levels system. In addition, these inap-
propriate verbalizations distracted the entire class, instigated other students to

Self-Management and Token Economy 171

engage in inappropriate behavior, and necessitated a high frequency of teacher
prompts and reprimands. School records indicated that both students had not
responded to previous implementations of point-based contingency systems.

Procedures

The intervention was evaluated using a multiple-baseline-across-subjects
experimental design (Barlow & Hersen, 1984). Sessions were conducted during
the students’ normal classroom activities. Sessions were 50 minutes in duration
and were conducted twice daily, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.
The target behavior was inappropriate verbalization, defined as: (a) talking
audibly to the teacher or teacher’s aide without raising a hand and being
acknowledged; (b) talking audibly to another student during designated quiet
times; (c) talking audibly to the teacher or teacher’s aide with threatening words,
curse words, or derogatory comments; (d) talking audibly to another student
with threatening words, curse words, or derogatory comments, and (e) talking
audibly to himself. Data on these target behaviors were collected by the students
and an independent observer using event recording.

Data collection under baseline conditions continued for each student until
relative stability was established. The intervention condition was initiated for S 1
on session 20 and for $2 on session 52. Throughout the course of the interven-
tion, the investigator discussed a number of potential problem situations and
alternative strategies for dealing with these situations based on principles of
self-management. Periodically, the student was reminded that the purpose of the
training was to help him understand how to better deal with problem situations
at school and advance through the levels system. These discussions were
motivated by findings that suggest that a student’s understanding of problem
situations and awareness of alternative strategies heighten the effects of self-
management training (Brigham, Hopper, Hill, de Armas, & Newsom, 1985).

The definition of inappropriate verbalizations (referred to as “talking-out”
with the students) was read to a student and he was given the opportunity to ask
questions and discuss any parts of the definition that he did not fully understand.
An event recording sheet was shown to the student and he was instructed to
make one slash mark for each talk-out. The observer then modeled the self-
recording behavior in a mock session and the student was given the opportunity
to ask questions and discuss the procedure (Brigham et al., 1985). Students were
told that the accuracy of their recording was important, that it would be checked
during a training phase until they could self-record with at least 85% accuracy
for four consecutive sessions, and that on the day that they reached this criterion
they would be taken to McDonald’s after school. Accuracy checks on a student’s
self-recording were then conducted until the student reached the criterion. The
definition of the target behavior was reviewed with the student each time
accuracy was calculated during this phase. Percent of agreement was calculated

172 A. R. Cavalier, R. P. Ferretti, and A. E. Hodges

by dividing the smaller number of recorded behaviors by the larger number of
recorded behaviors and multiplying the result by 100.

During this self-recording training phase, which was also Level 1 of the
levels system, accuracy checks were performed during 100% of the sessions.
During Level 2 and 3, accuracy checks were performed at least once per day and
without the student’s knowledge, that is, they were told accuracy would be
monitored but they were not told the specific times, and these were not obvious
to the students. The observer was positioned out of the student’s field of vision
and appeared to be engaged in other classroom activities.

At the end of each session, the student and observer together totaled the
number of recorded inappropriate verbalizations and, if the performance crite-
rion was reached, a reinforcer was administered. The criterion for reinforcement
was a decrease of at least five behaviors from the previous session’ s count. This
defines a schedule of differential reinforcement of diminishing rates of behavior
(DRD), which is a special case of differential reinforcement of low rates of
behavior (Deitz & Repp, 1973; Schloss & Smith, 1994). The reinforcer for the
first 10 sessions was 15 minutes of free time paired with praise. If a student
advanced to the next level in the levels system, he received the praise and
increased privileges inherent in progression through the system. The self-
management intervention continued until a student reached the terminal objec-
tive of no more than three inappropriate verbalizations per 50-minute session for
10 consecutive sessions. This level of inappropriate verbalizations was deemed
acceptable by regular and special education teachers. When S1 reached the
terminal objective, $2 began the self-management intervention condition. The
performance of S 1 continued to be monitored using a multiple probe technique.

RESULTS

The primary data are those recorded by the observer rather than the self-
recordings of the students. As displayed in Figure 1, the number of inappropriate
verbalizations by S 1 across the 20 sessions of baseline was relatively stable at
a high level, averaging 65.7 per session. This operationalizes the teacher’s
opinion that these behaviors were occurring at an unacceptable frequency.

On Session 21, the first day of the self-recording intervention, the data reveal
an immediate decrement in the frequency of the target behavior. This was
followed by a steady and continual decline. During each of the last 29 inter-
vention sessions, the number of inappropriate verbalizations was below the
terminal objective of three or fewer per session, that is, from Session 38 until the
end of the study, inappropriate verbalizations by S 1 were virtually eliminated.

Comparison of the observer’s recordings and the student’s recordings of
inappropriate verbalizations in Figure 1 reveals that the student consistently
under reported his behavior until Session 32. After this point, the student’s
recordings map onto those of the observer almost perfectly. As displayed in

Self-Management and Token Economy 173

o
~ $ I

~_ 0
o

m c

~ $2 ~
Z

Baseline Intervention Observer Data 1
. . . . Subject Data

‘/ / 2J,
Sessions

FIGURE 1. The number of inappropriate verbalizations by both students as a function of
experimental conditions. Arrows indicate sessions in which students achieved new levels within
the levels system.

Figure 2, for every session after Session 35 the observer’s recordings and the
student’s recordings achieve 100% agreement.

During the first 16 sessions of the baseline condition for $2, his frequency of
inappropriate verbalizations per 50-minute session ranged from a low of 32 to
a high of 98, with an average of 66.3 per session. At the end of Session 15, the
classroom teacher mistakenly delivered a stern reprimand to $2. Because of this,
one of the investigators reviewed with the teacher the nature and purpose of the
experimental protocol. While these circumstances did not occur again during the
course of the study, the immediate effect was a complete suppression of the
target behavior during the next session and a low frequency during the following
two sessions. Over the next four sessions, the number of S2’s inappropriate
verbalizations steadily increased. From Session 22 through Session 51 (i.e., the
remainder of the baseline condition for $2), inappropriate verbalizations oc-
curred at a relatively stable frequency, averaging 60.1 per session.

On Session 52, the first day of the self-recording intervention for $2, the data
reveal an immediate decrement in the frequency of the target behavior. There-
after, inappropriate verbalizations showed a relatively steady decline. The
number of inappropriate verbalizations during each of the last 10 intervention
sessions was below the terminal objective of three or fewer per session.

Comparison of the observer’s recordings and S2’s self-recordings of inap-
propriate verbalizations reveals that, like the first student, $2 consistently
underreported his behavior during the initial sessions of the self-recording
intervention (see Figure 1). Again, like the first student, S2’s inappropriate
verbalizations continued to decrease during this period of inaccurate self-

174 A. R. Cavalier, R. P. Ferretti, and A. E. Hodges

Intervention

Ioo

S1 so

~ ‘o
~ o

m $2

~ 2 1 ~ 2 S ~ d ~ H ~ 7 ~ a 0 ~O*1 ~ 2 ~ 3 5 ~ 7 ~ 4 1 4 2 1 Z ~ ~ * r ~ n o s l S2 ~a ~ ~ n z s i s g ~ e l ~ ~ e s H e z ~ ~ n n n Z4 ~ ~ r r = ~

Sess ions

FIGURE 2. The percentage agreement between the recordings of the observer and the
self-recordings of both students during the self-management intervention.

recordings. As displayed in Figure 2, from Session 68 until the end of the study,
the student’s recordings consistently matched the observer’s, with only two
exceptions (Sessions 63 and 67).

DISCUSSION

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the addition of a
self-management package to an existing token economy embedded in a levels
system would reduce the occurrence of inappropriate verbalizations in two
students with learning disabilities. We sought to reduce the occurrence of these
verbalizations because they precluded the students’ progress within the levels
system and they were an obstacle to their eventual re-integration into a class-
room with nonhandicapped peers. Prior to the self-management intervention,
both students exhibited a stable and very high level of inappropriate verbaliza-
tions. According to anecdotal reports of the teachers, these behaviors not only
interfered with the students’ learning of appropriate academic and social skills,
but were disruptive to the learning of other students who were making good
progress within the levels system without self-management procedures.

The addition of the multicomponential self-management package to the
levels system reduced the inappropriate verbalizations of the students to a
near-zero level within 19 experimental sessions. At a practical level, this
represents a drop from over 65, and sometimes even 100, occurrences within a

Self-Management and Token Economy 175

50-minute session to three or fewer per session. These decrements occurred
when, and only when, the intervention was applied to each student. These results
provide strong support for the contention that the self-management package was
effective, that is, that there was a functional relationship between the introduc-
tion of the self-management package and a substantive decrease in the number
of inappropriate verbalizations.

If it is assumed that the observer’s data are more veridical than the students’
(an assumption we will address shortly), then the early intervention sessions
were associated with decrements in the target behavior even though the sell’-
recording of both students was inaccurate. The finding of reactivity despite
inaccurate self-recording is quite common in the published literature (Lloyd,
Landrum, & Hallahan, 1991; Nelson & Hayes, 1981). Previous research dem-
onstrates that persons with learning disabilities often underreport the occurrence
of inappropriate behavior (and overreport the occurrence of appropriate behav-
ior) when self-recording (Lloyd & Landrum, 1990; Lloyd et al., 1991). In this
context, it may be useful to distinguish between students’ opportunity to observe
their behavior and their accuracy of recording that behavior (Nelson & Hayes,
1981). One cannot necessarily infer that students did not observe instances of
their behavior simply because they recorded it inaccurately. The act of observing
one’s behavior may be sufficient in and of itself to heighten the cue value of the
entire sell-management procedure and ensure reactivity.

It should be noted that further reductions in the occurrence of inappropriate
verbalizations continued as the students improved the accuracy of their self-
recording over time. At a more molecular level, it is difficult, however, to
determine what parts of the multicomponential intervention may have contrib-
uted to this relationship, or more generally, to the reductions in inappropriate
verbalizations. In this study, students were praised for reducing the occurrence
of inappropriate verbalizations, rewarded for accurate self-recording, and en-
gaged in periodic discussions with one of the investigators about the conse-
quences of their inappropriate behavior and appropriate behavioral alternatives
(Brigham et al., 1985). Packaging self-management skills and external conse-
quences probably increases the likelihood of a successful outcome, but it makes
it difficult to assess the independent contribution of self-management training to
the therapeutic process (Ferretti et al., 1993).

Earlier, we mentioned that there was a discrepancy between the observer’s
recordings of the target behavior and those of both students, and we took as
more veridical the observations of the observer. We should note, however, that
we did not check the reliability of the observer’s recordings with another
observer’s recordings, independent of the students’ self-recordings. The failure
to check on the reliability of the observer’s recordings raises a question about
the relative accuracy of the recordings of both the students and the observer.
Expressed differently, the absence of independent evidence about reliability of
the self-recording and observer’s data, especially at the beginning of the
intervention, raises a question about the accuracy of the observer’s recordings.

176 A. R. Cavalier, R. P. Ferreni, and A. E. Hodges

It seems to us that three factors militate against the conclusion that the observ-
er’s recordings were inaccurate. First, our anecdotal observations and those of
the teachers are consistent with the conclusion that the students under recorded
the occurrence of inappropriate verbalizations at the beginning of the interven-
tion. Second, the students eventually met our criterion of at least 85% agreement
with the independent observer after continued training. Third, the baseline data
(and our anecdotal observations) demonstrate that the behavior was quite stable
prior to the introduction of the self-management intervention.

The dramatic reductions in inappropriate verbalizations by S1 and $2 were
associated with progress in the levels system. By the end of the study, S 1 was
at Day 5 of Level 3 and $2 was at Day 6 of Level 2. Other students in class were
progressing through the standard system towards the highest level of function-
ing. The students’ rapid improvement in the levels system with the adjunct of
the self-management intervention adds credence to the teacher’s contention that
their inappropriate verbalizations were the major barrier to their advancement
through the system. Of course, it is also possible that some incidental effects
(e.g., increased saliency of classroom contingencies, heightened self-esteem in
achieving objectives, etc.) of the self-management intervention generalized to
the point-earning behaviors in the levels system. The social and academic
significance of reducing excessive inappropriate verbalizations in the classroom
is multi-faceted. With the decreased frequency of these behaviors comes fewer
threats and distractions, fewer teacher reprimands,

CJUS 840-DISCUSSION 1-REPLY 1

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