Contents

300 PART IV: Applied ResearchKey ConceptKey ConceptThe skill to be acquired in the Allison and Ayllon (1980) study was blocking.Blocking skill was defined operationally in terms of eight elements, rangingfrom the body’s first being behind the line of scrimmage to maintaining bodycontact until the whistle was blown. Behavioral coaching involved specific proceduresimplemented by the team coach, including systematic verbal feedback,positive and negative reinforcement, and several other behavioral techniques.The experimenter first established baselines for several different members ofthe football team under “standard coaching” conditions. In the standard procedure,the coach used verbal instructions, provided occasional modeling or verbalapproval, and, when execution was incorrect, “loudly informed the playerand, at times, commented on the player’s stupidity, lack of courage, awareness,or even worse” (p. 300). In short, it was an all-too-typical example of negativecoaching behavior.The experimenter and a second observer recorded the frequency of correctblocks made in sets of 10 trials. Behavioral coaching was begun, in accordancewith the multiple-baseline design, at different times for each of four footballplayers. Results of this intervention are shown in Figure 9.4. Across four individuals,behavioral coaching was shown to be effective in increasing the frequencyof correctly executed blocks. The agreement between the two observerson blocking performance ranged from 84% to 94%, indicating that the observationof behavior was reliable. The skill execution changed for each player at thepoint at which the behavioral coaching was introduced. Thus, there is evidencein this multiple-baseline design that the coaching method caused the change ineach player’s performance.A second type of multiple-baseline design involves establishing two or morebaselines by observing different behaviors in the same individual, a multiplebaselinedesign across behaviors. A treatment is directed first at one behavior,then at another, and so on. Evidence for a causal relationship between treatmentand behavior is obtained if performance changes for each behavior immediatelyafter the treatment is introduced. For example, Gena, Krantz, McClannahan, andPoulson (1996) attempted to teach several different socially appropriate affectivebehaviors to youths with autism. As the researchers noted, children with autismoften show inappropriate affective behaviors, which limit their opportunities tocommunicate effectively with others and to develop interpersonal relationships.Treatment included verbal praise and tokens (exchangeable for rewards) thatwere delivered contingent on appropriate affective responses in three or fourdifferent behavior categories. Target behaviors were selected from among thefollowing: showing appreciation, talking about favorite things, laughing aboutabsurdities, showing sympathy, and indicating dislike. Visual inspection of thebehavioral records showed evidence for the effectiveness of the treatment foreach individual. As required in the multiple-baseline design, the different affectivebehaviors changed immediately after introduction of the intervention forthat behavior.The third major variation on the multiple-baseline design involves establishingtwo or more baselines for an individual’s behavior across differentsituations, a multiple-baseline design across situations. For example, as wedescribed when we introduced the multiple-baseline design, a researcher might