Shaping attention span: An operant conditioning procedure to improve neurocognition and functioning in schizophrenia

The high prevalence of neurocognitive deficits in schizophrenia, and their association with poorer outcomes, has created interest in treatments that c an improve neurocognitive functioning in this illness. While a variety of r ehabilitation interventions have been developed, many are not appropriate f or the most severely ill patients, whose attention spans are so short that they cannot attend to the material being presented. For this population, th e only neurocognitive rehabilitation methods with demonstrated effectivenes s are those that involve the operant conditioning technique known as shapin g. In this article, we review the rationale for the use of shaping-based me thods as neurocognitive retraining techniques for treatment-refractory schi zophrenia patients, review published reports using this intervention, and o ffer suggestions for the future development of this method from both clinic al and research perspectives.