Task Engagement and Escape Maintained Challenging Behavior: Differential Effects of General and Explicit Cues When Implementing a Signaled Delay in the Delivery of Reinforcement

Abstract

This study was designed to evaluate the effects of explicit and general delay cues when implementing a tolerance for a delay in the delivery of a reinforcement procedure to increase task engagement and decrease escape maintained challenging behavior. Two preschool children with autism participated in an alternating treatments design with changing criterions for task engagement. For both children, descriptive and experimental analyses verified that the challenging behavior functioned to escape instructional task demands. Subsequently, two types of tasks were identified for each participant with assignment to either the explicit or general cue procedures. Both participants demonstrated increased task engagement with concurrent decreases in challenging behavior with both types of delay cues, though rate of successful work unit completion advanced more quickly with explicit delay cues.

Addressing escape‐maintained behavior for students with developmental disabilities: A systematic review of school‐based interventions

“…The standard of systematic manipulation of the independent variable was fulfilled by all included articles. Although all articles reported sufficient overall interrater agreement, only three (i.e., 33%) of the articles reported having adequate interrater agreement data by phase (Lloyd et al., ; Reichle et al., ; Tereshko & Sottolano, ). This standard was responsible for preventing the majority of articles for receiving a classification of meets standards .…”

“…However, the method used to verify function varied substantially across studies. Iwatian analyses (Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, & Richman, ) were used in the majority of studies (Butler & Luiselli, ; Ellis & Magee, ; McComas, Hoch, Paone, & El‐Roy, ; O'Reilly, Sigafoos, Lancioni, Edrisinha, & Andrews, ; Reichle, Johnson, Monn, & Harris, ; Sasso et al., ; Tereshko & Sottolano, ; see Table ). Brief functional analyses (Northup et al., ) were used in two studies (Cihak & Gama, ; Cihak, Kildare, Smith, McMahon, & Quinn‐Brown, ), with a single‐function FA being used by Neely and colleagues (Neely, Rispoli, Camargo, Davis, & Boles, ) and a trial‐based FA used by Lloyd and colleagues () and Flynn and Lo ().…”

“…The remaining strategies were each investigated in one of the 12 studies and represent broader and less empirically supported interventions. For example, Reichle and colleagues () found that providing specific cues to participants about the amount of work they were expected to complete prior to presenting the academic task (e.g., “Just do one more” or “Just this long”) was effective in reducing escape‐maintained problem behavior. Cihak and colleagues () presented participants with video Social Stories matched to behavior function that detailed classroom expectations and found that they were effective.…”

Single subject research: applications to special education

“…Several researchers in the field of special education used an alternating treatment design to address research questions in their areas of interest. In one of these studies, Reichle, Johnson, Monn and Harris (2010) used an alternating treatment design to investigate the effectiveness of explicit and general delay cues when implementing a tolerance for a delay in the delivery of a reinforcement procedure. The purpose of the study was to increase task engagement and decrease escape-maintained challenging behaviour of two students with autism.…”

The Motivating Operation and Negatively Reinforced Problem Behavior

“…The current review identified several studies to support this position. A range of methods were used to help identify “difficult” demands, including staff report (Butler & Luiselli, 2007), classroom approach behaviors (Reichle, Johnson, Monn, & Harris, 2010), the use of a demand hierarchy assessment (Call, Wacker, Ringdahl, Cooper-Brown, & Boelter, 2004), and task accuracy (Lee, Sugai, & Horner, 1999; Moore & Edwards, 2003; Reichle & McComas, 2004). All these studies demonstrated that demands rated as “difficult” were more likely to evoke escape-maintained problem behavior than demands rated as “easy.”…”