The study selected for this discussion is the study by Peterson, Caniglia, Royster, Macfarlane, Plowman, Baird, and Wu titled Blending Functional Communication Training and Choice Making to Improve Task Engagement and Decrease Problem Behaviour. Peterson, Caniglia, Royster, Macfarlane, Plowman, Baird, and Wu conducted a study to evaluate the effects of choice within functional communication training (FCT). In their study titled Blending Functional Communication Training and Choice Making to Improve Task Engagement and Decrease Problem Behaviour , Peterson et al. aimed to increase the task engagement of two participants with inappropriate behaviour. The study utilized two subjects, both of whom were children –Brad and Teddy. Brad was aged four and was diagnosed with a developmental delay while Teddy was aged nine and had mental disabilities.
The study established a trustworthy cause-effect relationship between the treatment and the outcome, and therefore it is internally valid. The study is not externally valid. This is because the participants used is not a good representation of the entire population, and therefore, the outcome of the study cannot be applied in other settings. The intervention procedures for child behavior are socially valid since the participants accepted and were satisfied by the appropriateness of the procedures used.
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Experiments sessions took place in two settings –one in Brad’s self-contained preschool special education classroom and the other in Teddy’s special education classroom. The study was conducted in three phases. The first phase was composed of functional analysis, the second phase consisted of FCT, and the last phase consisted of FCT plus choice making. In order to establish a correlation between the length and quality of breaks for each choice made by the participants, the researchers used a reversal design. FCT treatment was used to reduce the problem behaviours, and the participants were taught to mand or request breaks from the task that they felt was difficult for them.
In the study, during the FCT phase, the visual analysis showed the subjects learned to mand for breaks rather than engage in problem behaviour to obtain breaks. However, very little engagement was observed. When a structured choice-making intervention was implemented, the participants manded for work more frequently than they manded for breaks. Thus, the engagement increased. Generally, a decrease in trend with problem behaviours occurred during attention conditions and an increase in escape. The results obtained from the study indicate that it may be possible to bias the choice of a person toward working on a task by providing higher quality as well as longer durations of reinforcements for task engagement than for taking a break.
Target Behaviour Selected for Unit 10 Assignment
The target behavior I am selecting for unit 10 assignment is self-injurious behaviour (SIB), such as biting oneself, banging against the wall, and hair-pulling.
Reference
Peterson, S., Caniglia, C., Poyster, A., Macfarlane, E., Plowman, K., Baird, S., & Wu, N. (2005). Blending functional communication training and choice making to improve task engagement and decrease problem behaviour. Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Education Psychology. Vol. 25, Iss, 2-3; 257-274, DOI: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/0144341042000301193 .
