Some structural aspects of deviant child behavior.
Problem behaviors stick together in a cluster; change one with a clear reward or loss and the rest follow.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Raslear (1975) tracked three kids with serious behavior problems at home and school. The team used an ABAB reversal design: baseline, treat, return to baseline, treat again. They watched how hitting, yelling, and non-compliance rose and fell together in each setting.
What they found
Each child had a tight knot of problem behaviors that moved up and down as a unit. When the teacher or parent used rewards and loss of privileges, the whole knot dropped. Two years later the cluster was still intact, just less intense.
How this fits with other research
Feinstein et al. (1988) later showed you get faster drops if you first test why the knot exists—attention, escape, or sensory—and then pick the reward or loss that matches that reason. Lambert et al. (2022) built a full flowchart that does the matching step-by-step; some kids still need extra tweaks.
Kaur et al. (2025) counted 76 newer studies that copied the same reversal logic, proving the method still works across decades. Weber et al. (2024) used the same on-off logic only inside a clinic, not a classroom, to prove what the knot is made of before any treatment starts.
Why it matters
You do not need to tackle every single problem behavior. Pick the one that happens most or is easiest to count, apply your reward or loss, and watch the whole cluster fall. If the drop is weak, run a 5-minute functional analysis first so your reward hits the right cause.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Covariation within behavior repertoires of problem children were examined. Two boys, referred for psychological help, were observed both at school and at home for about 3 yr. A coded observation system permitted scoring of 19 child-behavior categories and six social-environment categories. After a two-month baseline, behavior categories were intercorrelated, demonstrating that each child showed a group of behaviors that covaried. These groupings were specific to the home and school settings. Contingency management procedures were then applied to each child's problem behaviors in one setting. Next, a reversal phase was instituted, followed by resumption of the initial contingency management phase. These three phases lasted seven months, until the end of the children's public school terms. Results showed that the baseline group of covarying behaviors continued to covary over the three experimental phases. The children then entered a remedial education setting for three summer months, and then returned to schools and were observed in follow-up for 2 yr. The baseline group of behaviors continued to covary during both phases. The behavior covariations could not be accounted for on the basis of temporal relations between the behaviors and social enviroment categories. Although no behavior covariations extended across either child's home and school settings, contingency management procedures produced across-setting effects.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1975 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1975.8-27