Research has shown that behavior contracts, a form of contingency management, can promote a wide range of behavior changes for individuals in varied populations; however, relatively few studies have been conducted in nonacademic settings. In the context of two service projects, we evaluated the extent to which behavior contracts improved problem behavior for 11 children and adolescents in residential treatment facilities and foster homes using nonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants’ designs with three or more tiers and supplemental statistical analysis for each tier. Practitioners in each setting implemented individualized behavior contracts for 5 to 59 weeks. Results show that behavior improved substantially for six participants but was relatively unchanged for the other five participants. We discuss the limitations of this clinically driven study, as well as clinical implications of our mixed findings.

中文翻译：

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使用行为合同在多种情况下改善儿童和青少年的行为

研究表明，行为合同是一种应急管理方式，可以促进不同人群中个体的行为改变。但是，在非学术环境中进行的研究相对较少。在两个服务项目的背景下，我们评估了行为契约改善了11个儿童和青少年在住宅治疗设施和寄养家庭中的问题行为的程度，其中使用了参与者设计中的非并行多基准，分为三个或三个以上层次，并对每个层次进行了补充统计分析层。在每种情况下，从业人员都要执行5到59周的个性化行为合同。结果显示，六名参与者的行为得到了显着改善，而其他五名参与者的行为则相对没有变化。