TIME-OUT AS A MEANS OF SHAPING WHOLE-TASK COMPLETION AS A PRECURSOR TO ESTABLISHING RULE-FOLLOWING BEHAVIOR WITH A SEVERELY NONCOMPLIANT PRESCHOOL-CHILD

A preschool girl who displayed severe noncompliant and disruptive beha viour was taught to successfully complete a card-matching task, to ver balise the task requirements, and to report successful task completion by means of a time-out procedure in combination with correspondence t raining. In order to bring about this success, time out was successive ly introduced for three preparatory behaviours (sitting still, keeping hands down, and looking at the task materials), for completion of sim ple tasks interspersed between trials of card-matching, and for statin g the card-matching task requirement. The conditions for implementing time-out were gradually changed from allowing two chances to comply (i mplemented only after a second request was not complied with) to allow ing only one chance (implemented after the first request was not compl ied with). This changing criterion time-out procedure was used in plac e of the more commonly used, but possibly more lengthy procedure where by tasks not performed adequately are broken down into smaller steps a nd successive approximations are contingently shaped. The success of t he time-out procedure is discussed as a potential means of conducting powerful early interventions with young children at risk for diagnoses of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or similar disorders wher e a failure to correct severe behaviour problems observed at an early age is predictive of the need for more intrusive and expensive interve ntions later.