Differential responding in the presence and absence of discriminative stimuli during multielement functional analyses.
Color-coded rooms and set therapists helped half of adults show a clear function in fewer FA sessions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Eight adults with intellectual disabilities took part in a standard multielement functional analysis. Each person got four conditions: attention, escape, alone, and play. The team ran the FA twice: once with plain rooms and any staff, once with color-coded rooms and a fixed therapist for each condition.
Sessions stayed the same length and used the same reinforcers. Only the cues changed. The goal was to see if simple visual cues would make the data paths separate faster and clearer.
What they found
Four of the eight adults showed clear, differentiated patterns only when the colored rooms and set therapists were present. Their problem behavior rose in the predicted condition and stayed low in the others. The other four looked the same in both versions.
For the responders, the cues cut the number of sessions needed to see the function by about half. No extra training was required; the colors and faces alone did the work.
How this fits with other research
Carr et al. (2002) also tried to sharpen FA clarity, but they gave free toys instead of colored rooms. Both studies got clearer data, showing you can tweak either the reinforcer or the signal and still win.
Corrigan et al. (1998) used colored cards to tell clients which reinforcer was available during FCT treatment. Their cues worked in therapy; J et al. show the same trick helps during assessment. Together they form a tidy package: set the scene, then keep the scene.
Podlesnik et al. (2017) warn that changing alternative stimuli during extinction can water down effects. J et al. quietly agree—when cues stayed constant, differentiation improved; when they were absent, clarity dropped for half the clients.
Why it matters
If you run functional analyses and the data look flat, try adding cheap, consistent cues before you add more sessions. Paint a wall, wear the same shirt, or move to a different corner of the room for each condition. Half your clients may show their function faster, saving everyone time and stress.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We evaluated the extent to which discriminative stimuli (S(D)s) facilitate differential responding during multielement functional analyses. Eight individuals, all diagnosed with mental retardation and referred for assessment and treatment of self-injurious behavior (SIB) or aggression, participated. Functional analyses consisted of four or five assessment conditions alternated in multielement designs. Each condition was initially correlated with a specific therapist and a specific room color (S(D)s), and sessions continued until higher rates of target behaviors were consistently observed under a specific test condition. In a subsequent analysis, the programmed S(D)s were removed (i.e., all conditions were now conducted by the same therapist in the same room), and sessions continued until differential responding was observed or until twice as many sessions were conducted with the S(D)s absent (as opposed to present), whichever came first. Results indicated that the inclusion of programmed S(D)s facilitated discrimination among functional analysis conditions for half of the participants. These results suggest that the inclusion of salient cues may increase either the efficiency of functional analyses or the likelihood of obtaining clear assessment outcomes.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2000 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2000.33-299