The hypothetical behavioral problem selected is that of a ten-year-old girl with autism who has a behavior of frequently banging their head against hard surfaces while in school. Multi-element functional analysis will be used to assess this case of self-injury. A multi-element design is chosen for this case since it will enable the analyst to analyze the behavior against the perceived triggers over a considerable length of time. Multi-element analysis requires sessions to alternate over a fixed time interval, which for this case, will be a day ( Cihak, Alberto & Fredrick, 2007 ). The analysis is designed to have four conditions spread over twelve days.
Day one will be headlined by the attention condition where the specialist will give the girl attention every time she bangs her head. The frequency of headbanging will be recorded. If the behavior occurs frequently, then it would imply that the girl wants to have social attention. The purpose is to ascertain whether the client craves for attention from those close to her. The alone condition will be used on the second day, where the girl’s behavior will be observed with the help of a CCTV while alone with no practitioner, instructor, toys, or parents present. If the headbanging is frequent, it will imply that the behavior is for self-pleasure or triggered by automatic reinforcement ( Cihak et al., 2007 ). For this condition, the focus will be to identify if the girl reaps any pleasure from her behavior.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The condition for the third day will be free-play where the girl and the practitioner will play games with the child’s toys of choice. It will be expected that the frequency of headbangs will decline. This condition will be used as the experiment’s control. The escape condition will be used on the fourth day, where the expert will stop engaging her in any academic activities each time the client begins to bang their head. If the behavior is rampant, then it will imply the girl bangs her head to escape from academic tasks. The condition will establish whether any supervised tasks are the triggers of the behavior ( Cihak et al., 2007 ). For the next eight days, the four conditions will be alternated, and data on the frequency of headbangs will be recorded continuously.
Reference
Cihak, D., Alberto, P. A., & Fredrick, L. D. (2007). Use of brief functional analysis and intervention evaluation in public settings. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions , 9 (2), 80-93.
