For children with autism or intellectual and developmental disabilities who also have complex communication needs, communication is a necessary skill set to increase independence and quality of life. Understanding the how, where, and communication style being taught is important for identifying deficits in the field as well as which interventions…

Literature is reviewed documenting the relationship between implementation of communication intervention and decreases in excess behavior in persons with severe disabilities. Operant conditioning and pragmatics are discussed in terms of their joint application to excess behavior, and a list of possible pragmatic intents of excess behavior is…

This article discusses assessment strategies for accurately pinpointing the social and communicative functions of challenging behavior and presents an array of proactive interventions to decrease escape-motivated challenging behavior and to decrease access-motivated challenging behavior. Factors influencing the selection of one intervention…

This paper examines the functions of challenging behavior in individuals with mental retardation, methods for determining the function of a particular behavior, strategies for implementing initial communicative functions that compete with challenging behavior, and procedures that specifically address attention-motivated and…