The College of Education, Health and

Human Sciences

Announces the Final Examination of

Tiffany Freeze Denton

for the degree of

Doctor of Education

July 7, 2014 at 2:00 pm

405 Ball Hall, University of Memphis

Memphis, TN

Biographical Sketch

Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, Harding University

Master of Arts/Education Specialist, School Psychology, The University of Memphis

Advisory Committee

James Meindl, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Instruction and Curriculum Leadership, Committee chair

Neal Miller, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Instruction and Curriculum Leadership

Todd Whitney, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Instruction and Curriculum Leadership

Laura Casey, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Instruction and Curriculum Leadership

Major Field of Study

Instruction and Curriculum Leadership

Period of Preparation:  2011 – 2013

Comprehensive Examination Passed: October 2013

Temporal Discounting: Using a Shifting Delay Procedure to Teach Delay-to-Reinforcement

Abstract

Investigation of delay effects on subjective reward value is referred to as temporal or delay discounting, as the value of the reward is discounted as a result of a delay to the reward’s presentation.  One way to measure the subjective value of delayed rewards is by assessing choice.  In examining delay discounting, choice trials are presented between small immediate rewards and larger delayed rewards across a range of delays and reward magnitude.  Procedures that reverse choice responding from smaller immediate rewards to larger delayed rewards are important to teaching an organism to tolerate delayed reinforcement.  Teaching children to make adaptive choices such as compliance, completing assigned tasks, and making functional requests involves teaching them to forgo engaging in behaviors that result in small sooner outcomes in favor of those resulting in larger later outcomes. Behavioral procedures to teach delay-to-reinforcement have produced positive outcomes but are not well established in the current body of literature.  Thus, there are limited standardized procedures and treatment options available to teach children to choose delayed rewards.  In the current study, a novel method to teach delay-to-reinforcement tolerance in young children was investigated.  This novel method, called a Shifting Delay Procedure, involved splitting the larger later reward into both an immediate and delayed reward, and then gradually shifting the immediate portion to the delayed portion.  The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of the literature on temporal discounting and describe the effects of this novel method of teaching delay-to-reinforcement tolerance.