A Comparison of Latency‐ and Rate‐Based CSAs in the Treatment of Automatically Maintained Self‐Injury
When latency and rate CSA disagree for automatically reinforced SIB, trust the rate-based CSA.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team ran two kinds of competing stimulus assessments on kids who hit themselves for automatic reinforcement. One CSA counted how many times the child hit during each 5-minute toy trial. The other CSA timed how long the child waited before the first hit.
They wanted to know if the quick latency-only CSA gives the same answer as the full rate-based CSA.
What they found
When both CSAs picked the same toy, that toy cut SIB by a large share or more. When they disagreed, the rate-based CSA was always right. The latency CSA picked the wrong toy half the time.
Bottom line: saving time with latency-only trials can send you down the wrong path.
How this fits with other research
Leif et al. (2020) faced the same problem—kids wouldn’t touch the leisure items—so they added prompting and DRA inside the CSA. Their tweak boosts engagement without cutting accuracy, something the target study did not test.
Jessel et al. (2020) also asked, “How short is too short?” They found that trimming an IISCA to 3–5 minutes killed experimental control. The target paper shows the same risk applies to CSA: brief latency trials can hide the real controlling stimuli.
Suhrheinrich et al. (2020) proved you can simplify fidelity checklists without losing reliability. The target study warns that simplifying the actual assessment—going from rate to latency—does lose reliability.
Why it matters
If you run a latency-only CSA and it disagrees with your rate data, trust the rate. Keep the full 5-minute trials when the stakes are high—automatic SIB can return fast if you pick the wrong toy. When time is tight, add Leif’s prompting and DRA instead of cutting trial length.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
ABSTRACT Competing stimulus assessments (CSAs) are used to identify high‐competition stimuli that effectively reduce challenging behavior. Despite their efficacy, CSAs can be time consuming to complete. Recently, Imler and Weyman examined the efficacy of a latency‐based CSA (LBCSA) to improve assessment efficiency. Although results suggested that there may be some utility to the LBCSA, it was not compared to a traditional rate‐based CSA. The current study's purpose was to replicate and extend the work of Imler and Weyman by conducting an LBCSA followed by a rate‐based CSA to examine the correspondence among outcomes for two individuals with automatically maintained self‐injury. Results indicated that the CSA outcomes were similar. During the extended treatment evaluation, high‐competition stimuli reduced self‐injury. However, when stimuli were associated with mixed outcomes across CSAs, the results of the traditional CSA were more accurate. Avenues for future research on LBCSAs are discussed.
Behavioral Interventions, 2026 · doi:10.1002/bin.70063