Further evaluation of the competition between positive and negative reinforcement among individuals with escape maintained problem behavior

Kodak, Lerman, Volkert and Trosclair (2007) found that participants who exhibited problem behavior maintained by escape selected an arbitrary reinforcer ( an edible) over a maintaining reinforcer (escape), suggesting that an arbitrary re inforc r may be more effective than the maintaining reinforcer in decreasing problem beh avior. However, because the tasks used may not have functioned as establishing operations for participants’ problem behavior, it is unclear whether these findings would generalize to tasks that reliably evoke problem behavior. The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend procedures conducted by Kodak et al. by conducting both a task preference assessment (as used by Kodak et al.) and a task motivatingoperation assessment as described by Roscoe, Rooker, Pence and Longworth (in press), prior to conducting the concurrent operant analysis between edible vs. br eak under increasing schedule requirements. A high-preference task, a low-pref erenc task (according to the task preference assessment), and a low-probability tas k (according to the task preference assessment and the motivating operation assessment) were alternated in a multielement design. Results showed that one participant consistently selected the edible over the break regardless of the task condition or reinforcement schedule in effect, whereas the other participant consistently selected the break over the edible. Further evaluation of the competition 3 Further evaluation of the competition between positive and negative reinforcement among individuals with escape maintained problem behavior Negative reinforcement involves the removal, postponement, or termination of a stimulus contingent upon a response, which leads to an increase in the future probability of that response (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007). Behavior maintained by negative reinforcement terminates, or postpones the presentation of a stimul us hat was present prior to the occurrence of a response (Cooper et al.). Negative reinforcement contingencies play an important role in shaping many behaviors for typically developing individuals and individuals with developmental disabilities. For example, when an alarm sounds in the morning, a button press to terminate the aversive noise leads to an increased probability that the same response or simi lar responses will occur in the future. In another example, a parent who provides their tantruming child with a candy bar may initially decrease that behavior but subsequently increase that behavior in the same setting in the future. In this exampl e, the removal of the aversive tantruming contingent upon the delivery of the candy will increase the probability that the parent will deliver candy in the future. Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to negative reinfor cement contingencies. According to Iwata (1987), aversive stimulation initially produces one or more of a variety of responses characteristic of both human and nonhuman subjects, including flinching, freezing, jumping, visual scanning, and related and diffuse motor activity and the eventual and more elaborate form of behavior is determined by the individual’s previous history and prevailing contingency. (p. 364) Further evaluation of the competition 4 Often the presence of training materials, an instructor or a specific environm ental arrangement can serve as discriminative stimuli for the presentation of an a versive event (Iwata). Severe behavior problems exhibited by individuals with disabilit ies such as tantrums, aggression, self-injurious behavior (SIB), environmental destruct ion and bolting can by shaped over time with continued exposure to negative reinforcement contingencies (Iwata). These behaviors can quickly termi nate or postpone an aversive event due to the posed danger to the individual and/ or caretakers. Identification of the contingencies that maintain negatively-reinforc ed problem behavior has been widely researched over the past several decades. One of the earliest studies evaluating negative reinforcement contingencies in i ndividuals with disabilities was conducted by Sailor, Guess, Rutherford and Baer (1968), who identified escape as the maintaining reinforcer for a participant’s pr oblem behavior. The authors exposed the participant to high-difficulty versus low-difficulty t asks to determine if task difficulty affected problem behavior. Results indicated t hat problem behavior was evoked by difficult tasks and that reducing task difficulty substanti ally decreased the participant’s problem behavior. In another early study examining t he role of escape contingencies, Carr, Newsom and Binkoff (1980) exposed two individuals with mental retardation to demand and no demand conditions. For both of the participants, aggressive behavior occurred at high rates during the demand condition and low-to-near zero rates during the no demand condition. A differential reinforcement intervention, involving the delivery of escape contingent on compliance, was found effective in decreasing participants’ problem behavior. Further evaluation of the competition 5 Through careful observation, measurement of target behavior, and the manipulation of environmental events, Sailor et al. and Carr et al. were successful in isolat ing the environmental conditions that maintained participants’ escape-maintained behavior . However, in both of these studies, the authors assessed only negative-reinforcement contingencies. In addition, only antecedent events that may function as motivating operations for escape-maintained behavior were manipulated. Therefore, it is poss ible that participants’ behavior were sensitive to other environmental contingenci es i addition to escape. The first study that involved a comprehensive analysis to determine behavioral maintenance by a range of environmental contingencies was conduc ted by Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, and Richman (1982/1994), who developed an experimental model to systematically test the effects of positive, nega tiv and automatic reinforcement contingencies on self-injurious behavior (SIB). In t his study, a series of test conditions, including demand, attention, and alone conditions, were alternated with a control condition. During the demand condition a therapist presented difficult tasks to the participant, and SIB resulted in 30s of escape. During the attention condition, the therapist diverted their attention from the participant and delivered brief attention contingent on SIB. During the control condition, the therapist delivered brief praise on a fixed-time 30-s schedule and toys were continuously available. During the alone condition, the therapist was not present, and no programmed consequences were delivered. For six of the nine participants, higher levels of problem behavior occurred during specific test conditions. Furthermore, Further evaluation of the competition 6 rates of self-injury varied considerably across subjects indicating that t he functions of problem behavior were idiosyncratic. Functional analysis procedures outlined by Iwata et al. (1982/1994) have successfully identified the environmental conditions that reinforce severe pr oblem behavior. Iwata, Pace et al. (1994) summarized outcomes from 152 functional analyses and subsequently evaluated antecedentor consequent-based intervent io s. Results showed that 38.1% of the 152 cases indicated behavioral maintenance by social negative reinforcement (escape from demands or other aversive event s). This study indicated that escape-maintained SIB is prevalent among individuals wit h developmental disabilities and that appropriate interventions could be identified based on results of a functional analysis. Numerous studies have shown that treatment procedures based on the results of a functional analysis are often effective (Baker, Hanley, & Mathews, 2006; B lake et al., 2004; Deaver, Miltenberger & Stricker, 2001; Wilder, Carelle, Harris, Reaga n & Rasey, 2007). Interventions for escape-maintained problem behavior often take two forms, antecedent-based interventions and consequent-based interventions. Antecedent-based interventions involve manipulation of environmental events that may serve as discriminative stimuli or motivating operations (Laraway, S nycerski, Michael & Poling, 2003). Studies involving the manipulation of motivating operations involve the presentation of events that may abolish the reinforcing effic acy of escape. Some examples of antecedent interventions for escape-maintained be havior include instructional fading (Pace, Iwata, Cowdery, Andree & McIntyre, 1993 ) task alteration (Zarcone, Iwata, Mazaleski & Smith, 1994) and noncontingent escape Further evaluation of the competition 7 (Vollmer, Marcus & Ringdahl, 1995). Instructional fading is an antecedent-based intervention that involves rem oving instructions and then gradually reintroducing them if participants’ problem behavior remains low. Weeks and Gaylord-Ross (1981) evaluated the efficacy of instruc tional fading for three individuals with developmental disabilities. In this study, the authors hypothesized that the presentation of difficult demands evoked participants’ problem behavior. During treatment, difficult tasks were removed from the instructional context and then slowly faded into the instructional context while errorless lear ning procedures were implemented. Results showed that the errorless learning proce dures greatly reduced problem behavior. In addition, this procedure decreased errors in visual-discrimination tasks but not in perceptual-motor tasks. Task interspersal is another antecedent-based intervention that involves presenting an individual with alternating easy and/or high-preference tasks with difficult and/or low-preference tasks. Ebanks and Fisher (2003) evaluated a taskinterspersal procedure for a participant who exhibited problem behavior maintaine d by escape. During treatment, easy and difficult tasks were alternated i a 1:1