Abstract:
Research has shown that individuals with intellectual disabilities who are employed in open employment have a higher quality of life than those who attend a sheltered workshop. Productivity has been shown to be one of many barriers that adults with intellectual disabilities face in gaining a job in a competitive workplace. Previous research has successfully increased productivity using a variety of methods that include teaching selfmonitoring, using prompts, setting goals and providing feedback or monetary reinforcement. The current study investigated increasing productivity by adults with mild or moderate intellectual disabilities who attend a work training centre. A changing criterion design was implemented with the use of non-monetary reinforcement. This was in the form of individual certificates for met criteria. The changing criterion design was alternated with the baseline condition to enable a comparison of productivity with and without reinforcement. In addition to productivity, time spent on-task, staff attention, affect and disruptive behaviour were also measured using a modified time sampling procedure and their influence on productivity assessed. Several phases of reinforcement were used as not all participants‟ productivity was increased using the original reinforcement procedure and modifications were necessary. All participants‟ productivity was successfully increased to some extent. Increases at the end of each participant‟s last reinforcement phase ranged from 13.6% to 66.1% of mean baseline productiveness. Certificates were shown to be effective reinforcers for all but one participant. No strong associations were found between productivity and the secondary behaviours measured. Implications and interpretations of the findings are discussed.