Semester

Spring

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Claire St. Peter

Committee Member

Kathryn Kestner

Committee Member

Barry Edelstein

Abstract

Abstract

On the Role of Task Preference and Work Removal for Identifying Escape Functions

Brian P. Long

Students within the public school system may exhibit severe challenging behavior to escape from academic demands. Procedures to identify the reinforcers that maintain challenging behavior, such as functional analysis, may improve the probability of treatment success. Functional analysis involves manipulating contingencies to determine if positive (e.g., attention following challenging behavior) or negative (e.g., escape from aversive events such as task demands) reinforcers may maintain challenging behavior (Iwata et al., 1982). The absence of evocative tasks could produce inaccurate results when testing for effects of negative reinforcement during a functional analysis. Structured assessments to identify evocative tasks to include in a functional analysis may increase the possibility of conclusive results. In this study, we used a structured assessment called the paired-stimulus demand analysis (PSDA; Zangrillo et al., 2020) to identify tasks for a functional analysis for escape. Also, we tested for differences in response rate based on removal of materials during escape periods in the functional analyses. The PSDA involved presenting teacher-nominated tasks in pairs and recording which task the student selected. The functional analysis involved three conditions: the least-selected task with removal during escape, the least-selected task without removal during escape, and the most-selected task without removal during escape. Although the PSDA identified a clear preference for tasks for all participants, an escape function was identified for only 1 of 4 participants. For all participants, removal and non-removal of materials contingent on challenging behavior produced no differential effects.

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