We treated the liquid refusal of a 15-month-old girl using 2 antecedent manipulations: flipped spoon and chin prompt. Use of the chin prompt in the absence of the flipped spoon failed to produce increases in mouth clean (a product measure of swallowing). By contrast, modest increases in mouth clean resulted from the implementation of the flipped…

The present study describes a case of a 9-year-old girl diagnosed on the autism spectrum who averaged nearly 1200 hand-to-head self-injuries (+attempts) per school day. Given the resources of the school and the significance of the self-injurious behavior (SIB), analog functional analysis is not possible. Moreover, functional assessment results…

This study applied functional analysis methodology to nail biting exhibited by a 24-year-old female graduate student. Results from the brief functional analysis indicated variability in nail biting across assessment conditions. Functional analysis data were then used to guide treatment development and implementation. Treatment included a…

Research has shown that functional analysis results are beneficial for treatment selection because they identify reinforcers for severe behavior that can then be used to reinforce replacement behaviors either differentially or noncontingently. Theoretically then, if a reinforcer is identified in a functional analysis erroneously, a well researched…

Children often have complex emotional and behavioral disorders (ADHD, ODD, Depression, PTSD, etc.). A large amount of research exists in the behavioral treatment of children with these disorders regarding specific behavioral problems. Much less research exists for the treatment of comprehensive problematic behaviors that these children experience…

We describe a clinical case study surrounding the behavioral assessment and operant treatment of, an adult with severe mental retardation who engaged in chronic breath-holding. In this clinical case, previous neurological and medical testing had ruled out biological bases for the individual's breath-holding. A functional behavioral assessment…

A functional analysis with a 13-year-old girl who had autism documented that her problem behavior was maintained by escape from instruction. Additional assessment revealed that certain types of requests and specific practitioners were associated with the highest frequency of problem behavior. In a subsequent intervention evaluation, response…

Results of prior studies (e.g. [J. Appl. Behav. Anal. 32 (1999) 285]) showing that participants chose alternative behavior (compliance) over escape-reinforced destructive behavior when this latter response produced escape and the former response produced positive reinforcement may have been due to (a) the value of the positive reinforcer…

A functional analysis was performed on a five-year-old nonverbal Autistic female with severe self-injurious behaviors. The self-injurious behaviors (hand-to-head, hand-to-jaw, hand-to-face) and loud vocalizations were targeted. Two types of sessions, enriched environment and instructor controlled preferred stimuli, were alternated throughout the…

A study investigated menstrual discomfort as a factor in severe problem behavior in four women with developmental disabilities and identified as having increased behavior problems at the time of menses. A multicomponent strategy, addressing both biological context and the psychosocial context (task demands), reduced problem behavior to near-zero…