Instruction in Functional Assessment, 2014a

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Instruction in Functional Assessment Chapter 3 gesture, or use of assistive technology devices (Mancil & Boman, 2010). For example, the individual may be taught to say “Stop” instead of engaging in self-injury during nonpreferred grooming activities (Steege et al., 1990). More examples of how a communication replacement behavior can be taught can be seen in the Table 12 below. Table 12 Examples of communication responses related to the function of the individual’s challenging behavior being taught Problem Behavior Screaming For Attention Hitting Others To Be Sent To Another Room Grabbing Food Finger Flicking For Visual Stimulation Replacement behavior that results in the same reinforcer Asking for attention Asking to go to another room Asking for food Clicking on a computer screen for an engaging video display Consequence-based interventions work to decrease problem behavior by manipulating events and/or stimuli that occur immediately after particular behaviors. Since every treatment program should include positive reinforcement, the procedures used to identify positive reinforcers will be described. Then, commonly used practices schedules to administer reinforcement and extinction procedures to decrease challenging behavior will be reviewed. The main ingredient for an effective behavior change program is positive reinforcement. A positive reinforcer is an object or event that increases the behavior it follows. As reviewed in Chapter 1, the principle of positive reinforcement states that when a positive reinforcer is delivered immediately after a behavior, that behavior is more likely to occur in future similar situations (Martin & Pear, 2011). Without consideration of positive reinforcement, the factors responsible for the individual’s challenging behavior may still maintain it, despite efforts to curtail that behavior. Additionally, programming reinforcers to increase the individual’s desirable behavior may result in the challenging behaviors being ‘supplanted’ or over-ridden since increasing one behavior will naturally eliminate the likelihood of engaging in other behaviors that are reinforced less or cannot occur at the same time. Application of a positive reinforcement procedure is not only an effective practice but also an ethically sound step to include in any intervention program. There are several considerations when using a reinforcement procedure, including: (a) incorporating knowledge of the function for the individual’s challenging behavior into treatment design; (b) validating that the consequence is indeed a reinforcer (be-it positive reinforcer or negative reinforcer); and (c) maximizing the individual’s motivation for that reinforcer. It is important to demonstrate that the consequence you believe acts as a reinforcer does indeed do so. The most accurate way to ensure that you have identified an effective 38
Instruction in Functional Assessment Chapter 3 positive reinforcer is to conduct a REINFORCER TEST. A reinforcer test involves experimentally comparing levels of the behavior in phases where the item being evaluated is delivered immediately after the behavior to that in another phase where the consequence is provided just according to a set time such as every 5 s or noncontingently (Cooper et al., 2007). This test may entail using an ABAB research design (Martin & Pear, 2011) where the A phase consists of a series of sessions where noncontingent delivery of the item being tested occurs and in B phase consists of a series of sessions where the consequence is provided following each occurrence of that behavior. These phases are alternated in an ABAB fashion to rule out confounding variables or alternative explanations for the findings. If levels of the behavior are higher when the item is delivered contingently (phase B) compared to when it is not (phase A), then that item has been demonstrated to function as a positive reinforcer. See the Table 13 below for an example of how the effectiveness of treatment can be evaluated using an ABAB research design. Table 13 Example of graphed data with an ABAB research design demonstrating that the reinforcer delivered immediately after the behavior during the treatment or B phase increases that behavior as compared to the noncontingent delivery condition or baseline phase. A PREFERENCE ASSESSMENT is an efficient method to identify a potential reinforcer by evaluating the individual’s choice for a variety of objects, events, or stimuli (Cooper et al., 2007). One type of preference assessment is a paired-stimulus assessment (Fisher et al., 1992). A paired-stimulus assessment involves identifying the stimulus the individual chooses most when pairs of stimuli are presented across trials (See the Table below for the preference assessment procedure). 39
Page 1 and 2: The Missing Link: An Introduction t
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