Functional analysis of precurrent contingencies between mands and destructive behavior.

Abstract

Functional analysis methods have greatly enhanced our ability to assess, understand, and treat problem behavior. However, standard functional analysis methods that assess whether problem behavior is maintained by social positive reinforcement (e.g., attention, tangible items), social negative reinforcement (e.g., escape from demands), and automatic reinforcement (e.g., sensory reinforcement, pain reduction) can produce inconclusive results and fail to identify idiosyncratic functions in up to 40% of cases. One such idiosyncratic function involves a precurrent contingency between destructive behavior and a child's mands (usually spoken requests). In this paper, I discuss this unique function of destructive behavior and a specific functional analysis method my colleagues and I have developed to analyze its precurrent relation to a child's mands. We hypothesize that destructive behavior may become a precurrent response for a child's mands because the two responses produce reinforcement more accurately and consistently than either or both responses could if they were operating on the environment independent of one another. ********** STANDARD FUNCTIONAL ANALYSES Functional analysis is a set of methods used to (a) identify the environmental contexts in which aberrant behavior is likely and unlikely to occur, (b) determine the contingencies that maintain aberrant behavior, and (c) prescribe effective treatments. Although several earlier studies examined the effects of a single environmental variable on problem behavior (e.g., escape; Carr, Newsom, & Binkoff, 1980), the inception of functional analysis can be attributed to the seminal work by Iwata and colleagues (Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, 1982/1994). What set this analysis apart from previous investigations was its comprehensive approach to analyzing the function of self-injurious behavior (SIB). Iwata and colleagues developed an experimentally sound method to analyze the three operant hypotheses for SIB described by Carr (1977). Carr suggested that SIB might occur because it resulted in attention from caregivers (social positive reinforcement), or because it resulted in escape from nonpreferred activities (social negative reinforcement), or because it produced sensory stimulation (automatic positive reinforcement). Iwata et al. (1982/1994) developed an analogue (test) condition for each of these hypotheses and compared the levels of SIB in each test condition with a control condition using a multielement design. Each condition consisted of a discriminative stimulus (Sd), an establishing operation (EO), and a consequence for the target behavior (SIB). In the attention condition, the test condition for social positive reinforcement, the therapist sat in a chair, reading a magazine (the Sd), and ignored the individual (the EO), but provided attention contingent only on occurrences of SIB (the consequence). If SIB was reinforced by attention, then the rates of this behavior would tend to be higher in this test condition than in the control condition. In the demand condition, which served as the test condition for social negative reinforcement, the room was furnished with work materials (the Sd), the individual was prompted to complete nonpreferred tasks or demands (the EO), and the demands were terminated following occurrences of SIB (the consequence). If SIB was reinforced by escape from nonpreferred demands, then rates of SIB would tend to be higher in this test condition than in the control condition. In the test condition for automatic positive reinforcement, the individual was alone in a room (the Sd), no toys, leisure materials, or other forms of stimulation were availa ble (the EO), and SIB resulted only in whatever stimulation it produced automatically (the consequence). If SIB was reinforced by the stimulation it produced automatically, its rates should be higher in this test condition because there were no competing forms of stimulation available. …