Advance Notice for Transition-Related Problem Behavior: Practice Guidelines

Abstract

Transitions between daily activities can occasion or elicit problem behavior in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Providing advance notice to signal an upcoming transition is a common practice in early and special education settings (e.g., Riffel 2010;Sandall et al. 2005). While the literature contains many demonstrations of the efficacy of various advance notice procedures, other studies have shown negative results. Practitioners are faced with the challenge of deciding whether advance notice is a viable treatment option for transition-related problem behavior in light of these contradictory findings. To assist the practitioner in this decision-making process, we provide a brief review of the advance notice literature, concentrating on the studies reporting that advance notice is ineffective at reducing transition-related problems. The goal is to provide practitioners with a better understanding of the environmental conditions under which advance notice is likely to be ineffective at decreasing problem behavior as well as the conditions under which it can be effective at reducing transition-related problem behavior. Discriminating these conditions may yield a useful set of practice guidelines for deciding when advance notice is a viable treatment option for decreasing transitionrelated problem behavior.Keywords Advance notice . Vocal notification . Transition-related problem behavior . Self-injury . Tantrums . Noncompliance . Autism . Intellectual and developmental disabilities . Preschoolers . Translational research . Unpredictable transitions . Rich-lean transitions . Negative incentive shiftsTransitions between activities can account for a significant proportion of teaching time in school settings (see Sainato et al. (1987) and are a ubiquitous feature of normal, everyday life. Activity transitions involve stopping the current activity and engaging in a new activity. Orderly and timely transitions are important to maintain a successful educational setting, and the ability to move from activity to activity is a major factor for independent living for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) such as autism.Transitions can be a major source of problem behavior (e.g., self-injury, tantrums) in individuals with IDD (Schmit et al. 2000) and typically developing children (e.g., Riffel 2010). Severe problem behaviors such as self-injurious behaviors (SIB) and aggression can pose serious harm to both the individual exhibiting problem behavior and others in the environment, and may lead to restriction of the individual's social and educational opportunities. In classroom settings, problem behaviors can increase the amount of time spent transitioning between activities. Self-injury and stereotypy can also be distracting to peers (Conroy et al. 2005), and noncompliance can severely disrupt the classroom. Time spent by teaching staff trying to cope with the problem behavior of one child or a small number of children during transitions within the classroom c...

The Effects of Advance Notice on Problem Behavior Occasioned by Interruptions of an Ongoing Activity in a Young Girl with Autism

“…Researchers have suggested the effectiveness of advance notice depends on the controlling variables of problem behavior or compliance (Brewer, Strickland-Cohen, Dotson, & Williams, 2014). McCord, Thomson, and Iwata (2001) previously found that advance notice was ineffective when problem behavior was controlled by the termination of a preferred activity or the initiation of an unpreferred activity (2001).…”

Effects of negative incentive shifts in food reward on rats' consumption of concurrent ethanol solutions

“…With respect to fluid consumption, we observed consumption of an alternative sucrose reinforcer, analogous to the consumption of high-caloric sugary drinks and snacks among people with greater perceived stress (Laugero,Falcon,& Tucker,Fig. More broadly, an emerging literature within applied behavior analysis suggests that negative incentive shifts may set the occasion for a variety of problem behaviors to occur (for recent discussions, see Brewer, Strickland-Cohen, Dotson, & Williams, 2014;Castillo et al, 2018). Mean ethanol intake (g/kg) for each rat during the last five sessions of the dose manipulation.…”

Escape from rich‐to‐lean transitions: Stimulus change and timeout

“…Examining the potential punishing effects of the signals of transitions is important because of the extensive use of prompts in applied settings. Indeed, the practice of advanced notice, or a warning regarding an upcoming transition, is advocated to reduce uncertainty associated with transitions (Brewer et al, ).…”