Functional communication training (FCT) was conducted by parents of 17 young children with autism spectrum disorders who displayed problem behavior. All procedures were conducted at regional clinics located an average of 15 miles from the families’ homes. Parents received coaching via telehealth from behavior consultants who were located an average of 222 miles from the regional clinics. Parents first conducted functional analyses with telehealth consultation (Wacker, Lee, et al., in press) and then conducted FCT that was matched to the identified function of problem behavior. Parent assistants located at the regional clinics received brief training in the procedures and supported the families during the clinic visits. FCT, conducted within a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design, reduced problem behavior by an average of 93.5%. Results suggested that FCT can be conducted by parents via telehealth when experienced applied behavior analysts provide consultation.

Behavior consultants conducted functional analyses (FAs) via telehealth with 20 young children with autism spectrum disorders between the ages of 29 and 80 months who displayed problem behavior and lived an average of 222 miles from the tertiary hospital that housed the behavior consultants. Participants’ parents conducted all procedures during weekly telehealth consultations in regional clinics located an average of 15 miles from the participants’ homes. Behavior consultants briefly trained parent assistants to provide on-site support for families during consultations. FAs completed within a multielement design identified environmental variables that maintained problem behavior for 18 of the 20 cases, and interrater agreement averaged over 90%. Results suggested that behavior analysts can conduct FAs effectively and efficiently via telehealth.

The researchers in the project used telehealth to conduct functional analyses and functional communication training in homes of children diagnosed with autism who displayed problem behavior. Parents conducted all assessment and treatment procedures within their homes while receiving coaching from applied behavior analysts located approximately 200 miles away from them. In this article, the researchers summarize the technical systems they used to develop a telehealth service and the concerns and problems they have encountered using telehealth and provide some guidelines for how to troubleshoot those problems.

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether destructive behavior and manding were maintained by the same social reinforcers. A summary of 10 participants that met criteria for differentiated functional analysis and mand analysis results were included in this study. All participants were preschool-aged children with developmental disabilities who engaged in destructive behavior. All procedures were conducted in the participants' homes by their parent with investigator coaching. Functional analyses (attention, escape, and tangible test conditions) of destructive behavior and manding were conducted within multielement designs and showed social functions. The functional analysis of destructive behavior and functional analysis of mands identified the same reinforcers for only 2 of the 10 participants. The analysis of mands identified a reinforcer that was not identified by the analysis of destructive behavior for 5 participants (over-identification), did not identify a reinforcer that was identified by the analysis of destructive behavior for 2 participants (underidentification), and identified mixed reinforcers (combination of over-identification and underidentification) for 1 participant. Results suggest that the analysis of destructive behavior and the analysis of mands identified different reinforcers and are not interchangeable. Keywords Functional analysis; Mand analysis; Functional communication trainingFunctional communication training (FCT;Carr and Durand 1985) was developed to replace destructive behavior with appropriate communicative behavior (mands) as a means of obtaining reinforcement. Thus, when implementing FCT, the mand produces reinforcement whereas reinforcement is withheld for destructive behavior. For example, if destructive behavior is determined to be maintained by negative reinforcement, then FCT is implemented by placing destructive behavior on extinction and providing negative reinforcement (e.g., a break from the work task) contingent on the targeted mand.FCT is currently the most frequently published function-based intervention for problem behavior (Tiger et al. 2008) and has proven to be an effective intervention across both positive and negative reinforcement functions (Peterson et al. 2005;Shirley et al. 1997). It has been implemented successfully across distinct problem behaviors (Bowman et al. 1997;Durand and Carr 1991; Volkert et al. 2009), communication modalities (Carr andDurand 1985;Durand 1999;Shirley et al. 1997;Wacker et al. 1990), subgroups of children and adults with disabilities (Carr and Durand 1985;Durand and Carr 1991;Shirley et al. 1997), and across settings such as children's homes (Wacker et al. 2005), residential settings (Shirley et al. 1997) units (Bowman et al. 1997;Wacker et al. 2009), outpatient clinics (Brown et al. 2000, schools (Carr and Durand 1985;Durand and Carr 1991;Peterson et al. 2005), and community settings (Durand 1999).One likely reason for the success of FCT is that most FCT treatments are based directly on the results of a functiona...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of functional communication training (FCT) on the occurrence of non-targeted disruptive behavior. The 10 participants were preschool-aged children with developmental disabilities who engaged in both destructive (property destruction, aggression, self-injury) and disruptive (hand flapping, spinning in circles, shrill laughter, screaming, crying) behaviors. Only destructive behavior was targeted for the functional analyses and FCT, but data were also collected on disruptive behaviors. All procedures were conducted in the participants’ homes by their mothers with investigator coaching. Phase 1 consisted of conducting a functional analysis within a multielement design. Phase 2 consisted of conducting FCT with demand fading and repeated extinction baselines within a reversal design. Single-case data are provided for 3 participants, and summary data are provided for all 10 participants. Results of phase 1 showed that all participants’ destructive and disruptive behavior was maintained, at least in part, by negative reinforcement. Results of phase 2 showed that both destructive behavior and non-targeted disruptive behavior occurred at lower levels during FCT when compared to the functional analysis demand condition and baseline conditions, suggesting that FCT was effective in decreasing both target destructive behavior and non-targeted disruptive behaviors.

We evaluated whether differences in treatment effectiveness or preference between languages emerged across Spanish and English during functional communication training (FCT) for young children with developmental disabilities exposed to Spanish and English in the home environment. Participants were 2 young children with developmental disabilities who displayed destructive behavior maintained by social contingencies and whose families spoke Spanish and English at home. All procedures were conducted in the participants’ homes by their mothers with coaching from the investigator. The effectiveness of FCT was evaluated within a reversal design across baseline, FCT, and extinction conditions. A multielement design across language type (Spanish and English) was embedded within the reversal design during the extinction and FCT conditions to evaluate differences in treatment effectiveness across type of language. Finally, during all FCT sessions, a concurrent schedules design was used to evaluate participant preference for type of language. Results suggested that FCT was effective in reducing destructive behavior, increasing manding, and/or increasing task completion for these 2 participants across Spanish and English treatment conditions. Preference for the type of language did not emerge for either participant during FCT. Results are discussed in terms of the merits of systematically evaluating language variables when working with culturally and linguistically diverse families and children.

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