Contingent Access to Preferred Items versus a Guided Compliance Procedure to Increase Compliance among Preschoolers

Noncompliance with instructions is among the most common behavior problems exhibited by preschoolers. Although three-step guidance compliance procedures have been shown to be effective to increase compliance among some children, they may require that a child be exposed to a number of trials before compliance begins to increase. In this study a three-step guided compliance procedure was compared to contingent access to preferred items to increase compliance among three preschool students. Results showed that contingent access to preferred items produced greater and more immediate increases in compliance and fewer problem behaviors than did the guided compliance procedure for all participants.