Initial outcomes of an augmented competing stimulus assessment

Competing stimulus assessments (CSAs) are designed to identify stimuli that, when made freely available, reduce problem behavior. Although CSAs have demonstrated utility, identifying competing stimuli can be difficult for some individuals. The current study describes outcomes from an augmented CSA (A-CSA) for 6 consecutively encountered cases with treatment-resistant subtypes of automatically maintained problem behavior. When test stimuli were made freely available, only between 0 and 1 effective competing stimuli were identified for each case. Prompting and response blocking were temporarily employed in succession to promote engagement with stimuli and disrupt problem behavior. When those procedures were withdrawn and stimuli made freely available, the number of effective competing stimuli increased in all 6 cases. Findings suggest that procedures designed to promote engagement and disrupt problem behavior may allow the A-CSA to be a platform not only for identifying competing stimuli, but also for actively establishing competing stimuli.     

Increasing response diversity in children with autism

Repetitive and invariant behavior is a diagnostic feature of autism. We implemented a lag reinforcement schedule to increase response diversity for 6 participants with autism aged 6 to 10 years, 4 of whom also received prompting plus additional training. These procedures appeared to increase the variety of building-block structures, demonstrating that an intervention that includes differential reinforcement can increase response diversity for children with an autism spectrum disorder.     

PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT AS TREATMENT FOR STEREOTYPIC HAND MOUTHING: SENSORY EXTINCTION OR PUNISHMENT EFFECTS?

We examined the effects of noncontingent and contingent protective equipment as treatment for self-injurious hand mouthing exhibited by 2 individuals with profound mental retardation. Results of a functional analysis assessment revealed that neither subject's self-injury was maintained by social reinforcement: One subject's self-injury was cyclical in nature; the other's occurred during all assessment conditions but most frequently when left alone. In the noncontingent-equipment condition, oven mitts were placed on the individual's hands at the beginning of a session and remained on throughout. In the contingent-equipment condition, the mitts were briefly placed on the individual's hands following occurrences of hand mouthing. For 1 subject, noncontingent mitts produced a large decrease in the rate of hand mouthing and contingent mitts produced similar results following a return to baseline. Hand mouthing was also reduced in the 2nd subject, but this individual was exposed only to the contingent-equipment condition (i.e., there was no prior history with the noncontingent-equipment condition). These results suggest either a punishment or a time-out interpretation rather than an extinction interpretation to account for the behavior-reducing effects of contingent protective equipment on self-injury.     

TEACHING WOMEN WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES TO IDENTIFY AND REPORT INAPPROPRIATE STAFF‐TO‐RESIDENT INTERACTIONS

This study examined the effectiveness of behavioral skills training in teaching 2 adult women with mild intellectual disabilities to report inappropriate staff‐to‐resident interactions. The reporting skill included making a self‐advocacy response, walking away, and reporting the interaction. Participants' performance was measured during baseline, posttesting, 2‐ and 4‐week follow‐up, and generalization probes in new situations. All participants learned reporting skills, maintained these skills at 2‐ and 4‐week follow‐up, and generalized the skills to novel stimulus situations.     

EXTINCTION OF SELF-INJURIOUS ESCAPE BEHAVIOR WITH AND WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONAL FADING

Three individuals with developmental disabilities participated in a study of the treatment of self-injurious behavior (SIB) maintained by negative reinforcement (escape from educational tasks). Treatment was implemented in a multiple baseline design across subjects, in which two treatments were compared in a multielement format. Both treatment conditions included an escape-extinction component in which SIB no longer produced escape. One of the conditions also included a fading component in which the frequency of instructions was initially reduced to zero and then was gradually faded back in across sessions until the instructional rate matched that of the original baseline. Results indicated that extinction alone reduced SIB to the end-of-treatment criterion in fewer sessions than did extinction plus fading for all 3 subjects. For 2 of the 3 subjects, however, there was an initial increase in the frequency of SIB at the outset of treatment with extinction (an extinction burst) that was not observed when extinction was combined with the fading component.     

ANALYSIS OF THE REINFORCEMENT AND EXTINCTION COMPONENTS IN DRO CONTINGENCIES WITH SELF-INJURY

Previous research has shown that self-injurious behavior (SIB) maintained by positive reinforcement may be reduced under differential-reinforcement-of-other-behavior (DRO) contingencies. In this study, we conducted an analysis of the reinforcement and extinction components of DRO while treating the self-injury of 3 women with developmental disabilities. A functional analysis revealed that each subject's SIB was maintained by positive reinforcement in the form of attention. Subsequent reinforcer assessments identified preferred and nonpreferred stimuli for later use in conjunction with DRO. Results showed high rates of SIB for all 3 subjects during baseline, which persisted when DRO was implemented without the relevant extinction component (withholding of attention for SIB) for 2 of the subjects. Low rates of SIB were observed for all subjects when DRO plus extinction was implemented or when extinction was implemented alone, suggesting that extinction may be a critical component of DRO schedules.     

PYRAMIDAL STAFF TRAINING IN THE EXTENSION OF TREATMENT FOR SEVERE BEHAVIOR DISORDERS

We implemented a pyramidal training procedure for staff working with individuals who exhibited self-injurious behavior (SIB), aggression, and disruption. Two adults with developmental disabilities and their direct-care staff and supervisors participated. Following successful treatment by the experimenters, two types of baselines were conducted with the clients and their direct-care staff. During an initial baseline, the staff implemented preexisting procedures. Staff members then received instruction on the new treatment procedures using training methods common throughout the institution, and data were collected during this “post-in-service” baseline. Experimenters then taught unit supervisors to implement treatment, collect and interpret data, and provide similar instructions and feedback to the staff members. The supervisor training was implemented in a multiple baseline design across subjects (clients and direct-care staff). Results showed little change following in-service training but noticeable improvements in direct-care staff behaviors and corresponding decreases in the clients' inappropriate behavior following the pyramidal training intervention with supervisors. Six additional clients (along with their direct-care staff and supervisors) participated in pre- and posttreatment replication designs, and their results provided additional support for the efficacy of the supervisor training procedures.     

THE FUNCTIONS OF SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR: AN EXPERIMENTAL-EPIDEMIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Data are summarized from 152 single-subject analyses of the reinforcing functions of self-injurious behavior (SIB). Individuals with developmental disabilities referred for assessment and/or treatment over an 11-year period were exposed to a series of conditions in which the effects of antecedent and consequent events on SIB were examined systematically by way of multielement, reversal, or combined designs. Data were collected during approximately 4,000 experimental sessions (1,000 hr), with the length of assessment for individuals ranging from 8 to 66 sessions (M = 26.2) conducted over 2 to 16.5 hr (M = 6.5). Differential or uniformly high responding was observed in 145 (95.4%) of the cases. Social-negative reinforcement (escape from task demands or other sources of aversive stimulation) accounted for 58 cases, which was the largest proportion of the sample (38.1%). Social-positive reinforcement (either attention or access to food or materials) accounted for 40 (26.3%) of the cases, automatic (sensory) reinforcement accounted for 39 (25.7%), and multiple controlling variables accounted for 8 (5.3%). Seven sets of data (4.6%) showed either cyclical or inconsistent patterns of responding that were uninterpretable. Overall results indicated that functional analysis methodologies are extremely effective in identifying the environmental determinants of SIB on an individual basis and, subsequently, in guiding the process of treatment selection. Furthermore, an accumulation of assessment data from such analyses across a large number of individuals provides perhaps the most rigorous approach to an epidemiological study of behavioral function.     

Effects of chlordiazepoxide and cocaine on concurrent food and avoidance-of-timeout schedules.

Five rats were trained on a concurrent schedule in which responses on one lever produced a food pellet on a random-interval 30-s schedule during 10 s of food availability associated with distinctive exteroceptive stimuli. Responses on another lever postponed for 20 s the presentation of a 50-s timeout, during which all stimuli were extinguished and the schedule contingencies on the food lever were suspended. The response rates maintained by the random-interval schedule exceeded those maintained by the avoidance contingency, but both provided a stable baseline to assess the behavioral effects of different drugs. Low doses of cocaine hydrochloride (1 and 3 mg/kg) did not affect food-reinforced responding or avoidance response rates. Intermediate doses (5.6, 10, and 13 mg/kg) produced a dose-dependent decrease in food-maintained and avoidance response rates, and both types of responding were virtually eliminated after administration of the highest doses (17 and 30 mg/kg) of cocaine. Low doses of chlordiazepoxide (1 and 3 mg/kg) increased food-maintained and avoidance response rates, and both rates decreased systematically after 10 and 30 mg/kg of this drug. The effects of cocaine and chlordiazepoxide on response rates maintained by avoidance of timeout from food presentation were unlike those reported when subjects responded to avoid shock presentation. The results of this experiment thus provide evidence to suggest that the effects of drug administration on avoidance behavior may be a function of the nature of the consequent event to be avoided.     

ENHANCING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF A PLAY INTERVENTION BY ABOLISHING THE REINFORCING VALUE OF STEREOTYPY: A PILOT STUDY

An alternating treatments design compared one condition in which a child with autism was allowed to engage in stereotypy freely prior to the intervention (abolishing operation component) to a second condition without the free‐access period. Levels of stereotypy and problem behavior were lower and levels of functional play were higher in the condition with the abolishing operation component. These data provide preliminary support for the use of abolishing operations in interventions to increase the play skills of children with autism.