Embedding comprehensive behavioral support in family ecology: an experimental, single-case analysis.

The study evaluates a comprehensive, ecological approach to behavioral family intervention with a family of a child with severe disabilities and severe problem behaviors. A multiple-baseline design across family routines assessed the functional relationship between parent implementation of a multicomponent intervention and improvement in child behavior and successful completion of routines. Results indicate durable improvements in child behavior and routine completion. Associated outcomes included generalized improvements in child behavior and enhanced activity patterns. Results verify the efficacy of the approach for ameliorating problem behaviors and empowering parents to build successful family routines. The value of collaborative research with families is briefly discussed.

Effects of extinction alone and extinction plus functional communication training on covariation of problem behaviors.

In this investigation, extinction (EXT) was applied alone or in combination with functional communication training (FCT) to less severe topographies of problem behavior while more severe topographies continued to be reinforced. EXT alone decreased less severe and increased more severe topographies of problem behavior (i.e., response covariation), whereas EXT with FCT reduced all topographies of problem behavior to near-zero levels.

Analysis of an escalating sequence of problem behaviors: a case study.

This case study focused on a student with severe disabilities who displayed multiple problem behaviors that fit a pattern of behavioral escalation. Analysis of the pattern in which problem behaviors occurred within instructional sessions, and comparisons of conditional rates of occurrence for specific behaviors to overall base rates of occurrence, indicated that the student's problem behaviors did represent a behavioral sequence. Functional assessment led to the hypothesis that the use of rule statements by the teacher was related to the occurrence and escalation of the problem behaviors. An ABAB reversal design showed that eliminating the use of rule statements was an effective instructional intervention for decreasing the rate of the student's problem behaviors. Independent ratings of the physical effort required for specific problem behaviors in the sequence suggested that response effort may be one variable underlying the pattern of responding within a behavioral sequence. Implications are offered for our theoretical understanding of complex patterns of problem behaviors and for future research and clinical intervention.

Effects of undesirable, competing behaviors on the generalization of adaptive skills. A case study.

This study provides a systematic demonstration of generalization failures in which irrelevant stimulus control of competing responses interferes with, or overrides, the stimulus control of adaptive behavior developed during training. Appropriate and inappropriate verbal responses by a 26-year-old woman with severe mental retardation served as the dependent variables. A reversal design across trained and nontrained settings indicates that presenting a stimulus with a prior history of control over "inappropriate" verbalizations concurrently with a stimulus controlling newly acquired "appropriate" verbalizations significantly reduces the strength of the appropriate stimulus-control relationship. The implications for training generalized skills are discussed.