Study objective: The present study investigated effects of video-based interventions incorporating a student's interests. Design: Multiple baseline design across target behaviors. Participant: A 7-year-old male student with autism spectrum disorder. Setting: 4 types of morning exercises in the playground of the participant's school. Intervention: In video hero modeling (VHM), the participant's hero served as a model engaging in the target behaviors. In video self-and-hero modeling (VSHM), the hero engaged in the target behaviors with the participant and praised him. The participant watched the video immediately before the target behaviors needed to be exhibited. Measure: The participation rate or level was measured for each of the target behaviors. Results: The first and second behaviors improved after video hero modeling was introduced. These behaviors became stable after video self-and-hero modeling was introduced. The remaining behaviors improved without introducing video hero modeling, when the performance of the first behavior was stable at its highest level. Conclusion: Further research is needed to replicate the experiment and to elucidate factors contributing to its effectiveness.

Study objective: To examine the effects of self-recording on the on- and off-task behavior of a student with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and to determine whether the participant could correctly record his behavior without help from a therapist/behavior therapist. Design: Changing conditions design. Setting: Participant's home. Participant: A second-grade elementary school student with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Intervention: In the instructional condition, desirable and undesirable behaviors were explained to the participant. In the self-recording condition, using a token-economy, the participant recorded his behavior every 3 minutes. He was given tokens according to the number of behaviors recorded by the observers. In the self-recording condition without a therapist/behavior therapist, the participant set a timer for 3-minute intervals and recorded his behavior. Measures: On- and off-task behavior. Results: In the self-recording condition with the token-economy, off-task behavior was reduced, and on-task behavior increased. These improvements persisted even when the token-economy was not in use, and the therapists were not present. Conclusion: The participant correctly learned self-recording of his on- and off-task behavior and was able to do that without intervention by the therapist.

Study objective: The present study examined the generalization and social validity of a stimulus pairing procedure used to teach 2 elementary school students with intellectual disabilities to read kanji. Design: Multiple-probe design across materials. Setting: A classroom for students with special needs in a Japanese public elementary school. Participants: 2 elementary school students with intellectual disabilities. Intervention: In the stimulus pairing procedure, kanji words and spoken sounds were simultaneously presented for 2 sec, followed by corresponding pictures for 2 sec. Students were required to repeat the spoken sounds immediately. Measure: Percentage of correctly read kanji words. Results: The percentage of kanji words read correctly by both students increased during the stimulus pairing procedure and was maintained for about 10 days. In addition, the students' kanji reading skill generalized to reading sentences in a passage. Despite some individual differences, teachers' ratings of the acceptability of the intervention were good. Conclusions: The stimulus pairing procedure was effective for teaching kanji reading to elementary school students with intellectual disabilities, and it was applicable to a school setting.

In the early twentieth century, Skinner developed a new type of experimental chamber. Skinner and his co-workers studied a broad range of schedules of reinforcement using rats and pigeons as subjects, benefiting from the invention and innovation of the Skinner box. Both general behavioral laws and species-specific phenomena of various species of animals, including rats and pigeons, have been uncovered as a result of the study of reinforcement schedules in the Skinner box. Researchers are now using other, previously unstudied species to explore even more general or species-specific phenomena. The development of adequate apparatus and experimental procedures is necessary in order to be able to conduct experiments using new species. The present article provides some anecdotes of development, success, and failure in experiments using budgerigars, penguins, kites, sea eagles, and zebrafish. These anecdotes reveal fundamental procedures that must be customized for each species, such as choice of response, shaping method, manipulanda, choice of reinforcers, deprivation methods, and development of specialized feeders. The present tutorial provides several tips for conducting animal studies and shows how problems can be solved with a little ingenuity.