Using Neutralizing Routines to Reduce Problem Behaviors

Abstract

Establishing operations can alter problem behaviors by changing the momentary value of reinforcers associated with those problem behaviors. If establishing operations (EOs) precede the presentation of discriminative stimuli (SDs) for problem behaviors, it may be possible to introduce neutralizing routines that both reduce the value of reinforcers associated with problem behaviors and decrease the occurrence of problem behaviors. The present study examined this logic with 3 adolescents with severe intellectual disabilities. Initial functional analyses indicated that problem behaviors were motivated by either escape or tangible items. Functional assessment interviews identified possible establishing operations that were associated with the occurrence of problem behavior and indicated that these establishing operations occurred over 1 hr before presentation of the SD for problem behaviors. We used an alternating treatments design to examine problem behaviors during instruction under four conditions: EO + SD, SD only, EO only, and neither SD nor EO. For all 3 participants, problem behaviors occurred almost exclusively during the EO + SD condition. A further analysis compared the EO + SD condition when neutralizing routines were embedded between the EO and the SD. Results from an ABAB reversal design supported the effectiveness of neutralizing routines to reduce these problem behaviors. Applied and theoretical implications are discussed.

A Preliminary Analysis of the Effects of Coaching Feedback on Teacher Implementation Fidelity of First Step to Success

“…Providing high levels of social contact before treatment sessions functioned as an AO and reduced the occurrence of attention-maintained problem behavior. Likewise, Horner, Day, and Day (1997) reported that sleep deprivation functioned as an EO for the tangible-maintained aggression and self-injury of one boy with autism. Allowing the boy to have a nap appeared to function as an AO and reduced the occurrence of problem behavior.…”

Positive Behavior Support

“…The proactive environmental design aspect of PBS is seen, for example, in strategies that seek to prevent the recurrence of problem behavior by enhancing opportunities for choice making (e.g., Dunlap et al, 1994), modifying the setting events that alter the valence of reinforcers for significant behaviors (e.g., Horner, Day, & Day, 1997), and restructuring curricula (e.g., Dunlap, Kern-Dunlap, Clarke, & Robbins, 1991). Indeed, the focus on environmental design as a proactive strategy follows logically from the systems change aspect of PBS discussed earlier.…”

Establishing Operations: Implications for the Assessment, Treatment, and Prevention of Problem Behavior

“…If a behavior is maintained by a particular reinforcement contingency and, with the contingency operative and in the presence of relevant S D s, the behavior sometimes occurs at high rates and sometimes at low rates, the operation of an EO might be suspected. A number of studies have now shown reductions in such variability when EOs are detected and manipulated (Horner, Day, & Day, 1997;Kennedy & Meyer, 1996;O'Reilly, 1995O'Reilly, , 1997Smith et al, 1995).…”

“…Although these methods have been used primarily to detect reinforcement contingencies, they all, in principle, can be modified to detect EOs and, in many cases, have already been so used. Horner et al (1997) interviewed the staff working with 3 individuals to identify putative EOs for their problem behavior and subsequently used an alternating treatments design to demonstrate their evocation of problem behavior. Although some approaches to the observation of correlations between environmental events and problem behavior (e.g., ABC charts) have limitations resulting from their focus on the immediate antecedents of behavior, they do typically enable the detection of EOs that immediately precede problem behavior (e.g., demands).…”