Functional Assessment of the
Causes of Problem Behavior
Chapter 23
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What Is Functional Analysis?
• Examination of the relationship between
behavior and its antecedents and
consequences
• Antecedents
– Eliciting stimuli
• Consequences
– Positive or negative reinforcement
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Types of Assessment
• Questionnaire
– Completed by those familiar with client
– Reliability issues
• Observation
– Observe what is going on
– Form hypotheses about antecedents and
consequences
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Types of Assessment
• Functional Analysis
– Systematic manipulation of environmental
events to experimentally test their role in
behavior maintenance
– Limitations
• Infrequent behaviors
• Not applicable in dangerous behaviors
• Expensive and time-consuming
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Causes of Problem Behavior
• Attention from Others – Social Positive
Reinforcement
– Attention follows behavior
– Individual approaches attention giver prior
to behavior
– Smiling prior to behavior
– Treatment
• Give attention at other times
• Reduce attention to behavior
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Causes of Problem Behavior
• Self Stimulation – Internal Sensory
Positive Reinforcement
– Continue doing the behavior because it offers
a desired level of stimulation
– Behavior continues at a steady rate
– Treatment:
• Increase sensory stimulation
• Reduce stimulation level of behavior
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Causes of Problem Behavior
• Environmental Consequences – External
Sensory Positive Reinforcement
– Behavior maintained by reinforcing sights and
sounds from the nonsocial external environment
– Behavior continues undiminished even though it
appears to have no social consequences over
numerous occasions
– Treatment:
• Sensory reinforcement of a desirable alternate
behavior
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Causes of Problem Behavior
• Escape from Demands – Social Negative
Reinforcement
– Escape from aversive stimuli
– Problem behavior as a way to escape various
undesirable demands
– Behavior only happens when certain types of
requests are made of the person
– Treatment
• Persist with requests (demands) until compliance
• Teach other responses
• Program where level of difficulty of requested behavior
starts low and is gradually increased
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Causes of Problem Behavior
• Elicited – Respondent
– Some behavior is elicited rather than
controlled by consequences
– Behavior consistently occurs in a certain
situation or in the presence of certain stimuli
– Behavior seems involuntary
– Treatment
• Establishing one or more responses that compete
with problem behavior (counterconditioning)
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Causes of Problem Behavior
• Medical
– Problem emerges suddenly and does not seem to
be related to any changes in the individual’s
environment
– Behavioral diagnostics
• Therapist diagnoses the problem after examining
antecedents, consequences, and medical and
nutritional variables as potential causes of problem
behaviors
• Develop treatment plan based on diagnosis
– Physician should be consulted prior to treatment
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Figure 23-1 – Causes of operant problem behavior. “Causes of operant
problem behavior can be further subdivided into the categories shown in
Figure 23-1.” (page 286)
Categories of the causes of operant problem behaviors.
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Guidelines for Conducting
a Functional Assessment
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•
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Define the problem behavior
Identify antecedents
Identify consequences
Consider health/medical/personal variables
Form hypothesis based on information collected
Collect data to determine if hypothesis is correct
If possible, do a functional analysis by directly testing the
hypothesis
• Design treatment program
• If treatment is successful, accept the causal analysis as
confirmed
• If treatment is not successful, redo the functional analysis
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