[behaviormed] 759-behaviormed Digest, Vol 7, Issue 16

[guy bruce]

Andrew,

I find the social versus automatic distinction useful, since it provides
information about the source of the reinforcing consequences.  However I use
these four descriptors to describe events that might function as
consequences:

1) Access ON or Off (Access to events or objects, i.e. tangibles or
activities, starts or stops)

2) Attention On or Off (Interaction with staff or peers starts or stops)

3) Demand On or Off (Demand on is when Staff or peers request that person
start or stop engaging in an activity. Demand off is when staff or peers
stop requesting that the person start or stop engaging in an activity) 

4) Stimulation On or Off (Some type of stimulation starts or stops
occurring. This self-stimulation, a.k.a. automatically produced stimulation
could be internal or external, e.g., the person turns on the radio or the
person's skin starts itching)



We can then record the onset or offset (start or stop) of any of these
events that occurs before or after a behavior of interest. For example,
attention off (staff or peers stop interacting with the person) occurs
before an instance of SIB and attention on (staff or peers start interacting
with the person) occurs immediately following that instance of SIB. 

 

So any event which is a change from the on to the off condition following a
behavior could function as escape from aversive condition-access off,
attention, demand off, stimulation off. Escape consequences can be social
(getting someone else to stop) or automatic (getting the event to stop by
acting directly upon it, as in scratching an itch or turning down stereo or
running away).

 

There is some overlap between stimulation and the other e, unless we say
that stimulation refers only to stimuli other than access, attention,
demand. Or we could limit stimulation to the type that is automatically
produced, either internal or external, that is consequences that do no
depend on the behavior of another. Also, I'm not yet clear on the difference
between access to object or event and stimulation, unless we make those
social and stimulation automatic.

 

There are just some thoughts. By the way, we are working on a PDA program
that will allows to directly record the occurrence of these types of events,
along with both problem and appropriate alternative behaviors, then
calculate on  is twice as likely to occur following  SIB than asking
appropriately for attention, attention on may be functioning as the
reinforcer. You could also use this tool to do a functional analysis, simply
by setting up the conditions, then recording the same data.

 

Guy

 

-----Original Message-----
From: 759-behaviormed-bounces at baocommunity.org
[mailto:759-behaviormed-bounces at baocommunity.org] On Behalf Of Applying
Behavior Concepts
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 4:28 PM
To: 759-behaviormed at baocommunity.org
Subject: Re: [behaviormed] 759-behaviormed Digest, Vol 7, Issue 16

 

To the behavioral medicine community,

 

I'm a co-instructor for FIT's online ABA program. During our class, we were
discussing a case where a young man began engaging in self injury. It was
later discovered, he had impacted, infected wisdom teeth. After surgery and
a course of anti-biotics, the self harm abated, suggesting the self injury
may have served an automatic function. We discussed the 4 functions, which I
often teach as the 4 A's: automatic (autonomic), access (tangible),
avoidance (escape), attention. 

One of the students said she learned the functions as:

 

SEAT ME: sensory/automatic, escape, attention, acc. to tangibles, medical
and elicited...where would the impacted wisdom teeth fall within this
schema? I was thinking of it as clearly a medical issue (not self stim. bx,
etc. which is what I think of when I think of automatic bx). 

Part of my response was:

As for the toothache, the behavior of self injury is evoked from the
existing EO/antecedents and maintained by the negatively reinforcing
contingency of "removing pain". That, to me, is an automatic function: the
individual would probably (and you could test it) engage in the behavior in
the absence of social consequences. Whether that is sensory, automatic or
medical is probably an issue of semantics but semantics are important.

So, where are you all with function? Is it the 4 A's or SEAT-ME? Just fyi, I
would like to post private replies on the FIT discussion board so the
students see what the behavioral community thinks. The course if full of
very enthusiastic students, many of whom are interested in ABA and
alternative treatments: GCF diet, etc.

 

Thanks for any and all feedback.

 

Andrew

 

PS-  I was reading the latest JABA which had an article about teaching safe
practices in hospitals: Thomas
<http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/abstracts/JabaAbstracts/40/_40-673.Htm>
R. Cunningham and John Austin. Using goal setting, task clarification, and
feedback to increase the use of the hands-free technique by hospital
operating room staff. Pp. 673-678.


-- 
Andrew & Rayna Houvouras
Applying Behavior Concepts
www.behaviorconcepts.com
"It's all behavior." 

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