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An Investigation into the Provision of Choice in Tangible Conditions of a Functional Analysis

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Abstract

An experimental investigation of choice was conducted within the tangible condition of a functional analysis for an adolescent male who engaged in self-injury and property destruction. Results indicated that problem behavior was maintained by access to tangibles during sessions which were preceded by the student choosing the item to be used during the session. Access to equally preferred stimuli that were chosen by the teacher (i.e., no-choice) did not evoke the target behavior to the same degree. Procedural variations accounting for possible reinforcing effects of the tangible condition are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The reader will note that the lack of a yoking procedure to control for the numbers of each tangible presentation to Larry across conditions is a deviation from typical choice experiments (see Lerman et al. 1997; Thompson et al. 1998) and may be a confound to our methodology. However, we opted for this deviation in an effort to best replicate the natural classroom setting. Readers should interpret our findings with this caveat in mind.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. May Institute, Randolph, MA, USA

    Derek D. Reed, Gary M. Pace & James K. Luiselli

  2. Melmark New England, 461 River Road, Andover, MA, 01810, USA

    Derek D. Reed

Authors
  1. Derek D. Reed
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  2. Gary M. Pace
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  3. James K. Luiselli
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Correspondence to Derek D. Reed.

Additional information

The authors acknowledge Nicole Heal and Daniel Fienup for the their assistance in this study, and thank Florence DiGennaro Reed for her feedback on a previous draft of this manuscript. Derek D. Reed is now at Melmark New England.

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Reed, D.D., Pace, G.M. & Luiselli, J.K. An Investigation into the Provision of Choice in Tangible Conditions of a Functional Analysis. J Dev Phys Disabil 21, 485–491 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-009-9159-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-009-9159-3

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