Reference no: EM133732147

Case: Consider the following scenario and then answer the questions below.

A behavior analyst is consulting with a parent to help decrease aggression and increase compliance in her 10-year-old daughter. The child has a history of yelling, punching the wall, and throwing objects when asked to engage in routine tasks around the home such as unloading the dishwasher, cleaning up her room, or putting away laundry. Typically, when the girl engages in this type of aggressive or destructive behavior, the Mom delivers reprimands and does not make her comply with the task demand.

Results of a functional assessment reveal that the behavior is maintained by escape from demands and attention from Mom. The behavior analyst decides to test out a treatment package to see if it is effective at reducing the girl's aggressive/destructive problem behavior (defined as (1) speaking in a voice louder than that which can be heard when 5 ft from another person, (2) punching a wall, and (3) throwing objects.)

The treatment package includes (1) escape extinction (i.e., she does not escape task demands), (2) attention extinction (i.e., no reprimands following the problem behavior), and (3) positive reinforcement for compliance with tasks demands (i.e., attention in the form of praise from Mom, plus she gets a choice of reward from a "reward chart"). The behavior analyst implements the treatment package in an ABAB reversal design and finds that aggressive/destructive behavior decreases while the intervention is in place.

The Mom was pleased with the results of the intervention, but she was wondering if she really needed to continue doing all the parts of the treatment package. She asked the behavior analyst what part(s) of the treatment did she think were necessary for it to work? The behavior analyst said that they could find out by collecting data on the frequency of the problem behavior under different conditions.

To do this, the behavior analyst and the Mom worked together to collect additional experimental data using a different single-subject design (NOT the original ABAB reversal design that showed the initial positive effects of the treatment package). They wanted to see the frequency of problem behavior under different conditions of the intervention.

Question 1: Name and define the type of analysis the behavior analyst conducted to answer the Mom's question (as shown in the graph above)? Explain why you would perform this analysis.

Question 2 What type of single-subject design was used to evaluate the different conditions of the treatment package?

Question 3 Based on the data in the graph, what is the answer to the Mom's question? Should she continue doing all the parts of the treatment package? Explain why or why not based on the data shown.