Assessment of self-restraint using a functional analysis of self-injury.

Scheithauer et al. (2015) ran a separate functional analysis that blocked self-restraint. They wanted to see if the kids held their own arms or wrapped blankets to stop their self-injury.

The team tested each child twice: once with restraint allowed, once with restraint blocked. They watched whether SIB rose when the child could not restrain.

When staff blocked self-restraint, self-injury shot up. When restraint was allowed, SIB dropped. The data showed the kids used restraint to escape their own SIB.

The restraint itself was negatively reinforced: it turned off the aversive SIB.

Jarrold et al. (1994) treated the same duo of behaviors but their FA was muddy. They still faded restraints while teaching mands and cut SIB. Mindy et al. give you the missing FA step before you fade.

Scheithauer et al. (2023) later copied the FA-plus-differential-reinforcement model in a child with Bainbridge-Ropers syndrome. The 2015 method travels to new diagnoses.

Rooker et al. (2022) used dense food reinforcement to beat automatically maintained SIB. Mindy et al. show that for some kids the real maintainer is escape from SIB, not automatic. Pick the right reinforcer path.

If your client wraps a jacket or sits on hands, do not guess. Run a quick FA that blocks restraint. If SIB spikes, you know restraint is a negative reinforcer. Build treatment that gives the same escape with safer behavior, then fade the restraint. You will treat the cause, not just the topographies.