A quantitative examination of punishment research

The current review examined 368 articles, published between 1967 and 2013, which evaluated punishment-based procedures for the treatment of challenging behavior among persons with developmental disabilities and quantitatively analyzed: (a) the amount of research that has assessed different types of punishment procedures; (b) the characteristics of the participants, behaviors, and treatments included in these studies, and (c) the relative efficacy of the various punishment procedures in general and with regard to the inclusion of reinforcement-based components, method of treatment selection and development, and function of the targeted challenging behaviors. Further, the study evaluated the included studies for the presence of important quality indicators. It was intended that such an analysis would provide a useful overview of the extant research on punishment procedures as a behavior reduction technique. Suggestions regarding research methodology and areas for further investigation are made for future research evaluating punishment-based interventions.