Analyzing the multiple functions of stereotypical behavior for students with autism: implications for assessment and treatment.
Match every FCT replacement response to the exact reinforcer your FA finds—no shortcuts.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with three students with autism who showed hand-flapping, rocking, and other stereotypy.
They first ran a full functional analysis to find what kept each behavior going.
Then they tested if FCT would only work when the new communication response earned the exact same payoff that the stereotypy behavior got.
What they found
Stereotypy dropped only when the FCT response matched the reinforcer found in the FA.
When the team used the wrong reinforcer, nothing changed.
Undifferentiated treatment packages failed every time.
How this fits with other research
Boyle et al. (2018) extends this work. They added non-contingent reinforcement on top of FCT and got bigger drops in automatically maintained stereotypy.
Fuhrman et al. (2016) and Ghaemmaghami et al. (2016) both build on the same foundation. They show you can later thin the schedule and teach delay tolerance without losing the gains.
Steinhauser et al. (2021) looks like a contradiction at first. They cut stereotypy in classrooms with simple DRA plus redirection, no FA needed. But their students’ stereotypy was likely multiply controlled, so a broad package worked. Staats et al. (2000) shows why that same package would fail when a single reinforcer is at play.
Why it matters
Before you start FCT, run a quick FA or trial-based FA like Weyman et al. (2022) show. Then pick the replacement response that earns the same reinforcer. Skip this step and you risk wasting weeks on an intervention that never had a chance.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We studied behavioral functions associated with stereotypical responses for students with autism. In Study 1, analogue functional analyses (attention, demand, no-attention, and recreation conditions) were conducted for 5 students. Results suggested that stereotypy was multiply determined or occurred across all assessment conditions. For 2 students, stereotypy was associated with positive and negative reinforcement and the absence of environmental stimulation. For 2 other students, stereotypy occurred at high levels across all experimental conditions. For the 5th student, stereotypy was associated with negative reinforcement and the absence of environmental stimulation. In Study 2, the stereotypy of 1 student was further analyzed on a function-by-function basis. Within a concurrent-schedules procedure, alternative responses were taught to the student using functional communication training. The results of Study 2 showed that similar topographies of stereotypy, based on qualitatively different reinforcers, were reduced only when differential reinforcement contingencies for alternative forms of communication were implemented for specific response-reinforcer relations. Our results suggest that the causes of stereotypy for students with autism are complex and that the presumed association between response topography and behavioral function may be less important than previously realized.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2000 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2000.33-559