Behaviour therapy is now beginning to assess the social validity, along with efficacy, of its treatments. Literature dealing with the social validity of parent-training programs is reviewed. The aim of this investigation was to obtain acceptability ratings of the “time out” procedure from the perspective of behaviour problem and non-problem children. The study looked at acceptability ratings of five maternal behaviours/disciplinary techniques (permissiveness, physical punishment, directed discussion, quiet time, time out) across four different situations (non-compliance with an initiating instruction, aggression toward others, non-compliance with a terminating instruction, non-compliance with known rule) by samples of clinical (problem behaviour) children and control children. Both groups were alike in rating permissiveness as less acceptable than any of the other behaviours across most situations and rating it as unacceptable in absolute terms. Time out was rated equally acceptable with physical punishment, directed discussion and quiet time. The results support previous findings that young children prefer interventionist to permissive parents, including the use of exclusionary time out. In a second study, ratings were taken from two clinical groups, treatment and waitlist, both at pre- and post-treatment. Despite large individual differences in the treatment group, no change in acceptability ratings was found at post-treatment. Thus, experiencing time out did not change the children's evaluation of this procedure. Possible reasons for these findings and their practical implications are discussed.

The effects of non-contingent rewards administered both directly and implicitly for a fine motor skills task were investigated under a time-series design. Data were collected from all members of a typical class, with the teacher acting as experimenter to enhance generalizability. Results indicated that non-contingent rewards possessed neutral consequential effects, thus challenging data from some previous studies which have methodological limitations. The ineffectiveness of non-contingent rewards as reinforcers is discussed, with several suggestions made for future research to investigate the issue of previous reward history and its effect upon the non-contingent reward condition.

Two case studies are described where behavioural strategies, including response prevention and controlled drinking, were used to successfully treat chronic compulsive polydipsia where traditional medical management had failed. The improvement during treatment and at the 3-month follow-up was reflected not only in reduced fluid intake but also in the reduction of associated thirst symptoms and psychological distress. The implications of these results for treatment of polydipsia and non-compliance with fluid restrictions, particularly among dialysis patients, are discussed.

The mother of a 7-year old boy with Down's syndrome was taught to use and to instruct others how to implement a behavioural management program to eliminate tantrum behaviour at home and in other social settings which was both frequent and persistent. The mother was the only person contacted throughout the program, which comprised three brief visits to the home and three telephone conversations. The program consisted of the extinction of tantrum behaviour using time-out from reinforcement coupled with differential reinforcement of appropriate behaviour. The behavioural objective of three consecutive days without tantrums was reached 18 days after the program was implemented and was maintained for a further 7 days, with only one minor relapse which occurred in a new setting. Six months later the improvement was being maintained. A brief discussion of factors affecting generalization and maintenance is included.

An alternating treatment design was used to measure the differing impact of visual screening and an auditory blocking procedure in the suppression of the screaming behaviour of a profoundly retarded girl. The auditory blocking procedure made use of white noise to mask any background or personal sounds. During separate sessions both screening procedures were applied for a duration of 1 minute following an occurrence of the screaming behaviour. Results showed that both techniques were successful in reducing the frequency of the behaviour. The visual screening procedure was the preferred treatment for maintaining and generalizing the suppression, because of ease of use and mobility.

Some recent developments in the use of interrupted time-series analysis (ITSA) are described with particular reference to the detection of effects with short data series such as those often encountered in applied behaviour analysis. The necessity to perform the sometimes troublesome model-identification procedure is questioned, and the likely incidence of Type 1 and 2 errors is discussed. Conclusions are drawn to suggest that ITSA may be safely applied to data that are typical of those collected in applied behaviour analysis.