The Use of Demand Assessments: A Brief Review and Practical Guide
Start every demand assessment with a quick caregiver interview, then test only the flagged tasks in a short direct session.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Avery et al. (2021) wrote a how-to guide on demand assessments. They read every paper on the topic and boiled it down to a short checklist you can use Monday morning.
The authors looked at indirect tools like caregiver interviews. They also looked at direct tools like short trial sessions where you present a task and watch for problem behavior.
What they found
The big rule: always start indirect. Ask the parent or teacher which tasks set the kid off. Then test only those tasks in a brief direct assessment.
This two-step plan saves time and keeps the child calm. You avoid long sessions that test every possible demand.
How this fits with other research
Kittler et al. (2004) said the same thing for preference assessments. They told us to ask caregivers first, then let the child pick items. Avery repeats the story for demands: ask first, test second.
Hurd et al. (2024) just mapped stimulus avoidance assessments. Their paper and Avery’s paper are cousins. Both give step-by-step help for finding what the learner wants to escape.
Hoyle et al. (2022) pushed for direct data over caregiver guess-work when tracking medication side effects. Avery agrees, but adds a twist: use the caregiver report to pick the targets, then collect direct data to confirm.
Why it matters
You no longer need to guess which demands to test. Run a five-minute caregiver interview, list the top three problem tasks, and run a brief direct assessment with only those tasks. You finish faster, stress the child less, and walk away with clear escape triggers you can plug straight into treatment.
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Send the caregiver a three-question survey asking which tasks usually start problem behavior, then schedule a ten-minute direct assessment using only those tasks.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
It is important for practitioners to first conduct an indirect demand assessment to identify appropriate stimuli to include during the direct demand assessment. Information obtained from an indirect demand assessment is useful not only for identifying which demands to evaluate during the direct assessment but also for selecting stimuli associated with each demand. Conducting an indirect demand assessment with caregivers provides practitioners the opportunity to identify whether specific demand stimuli are associated with more challenging behavior (e.g., writing with a pen vs. a pencil) and whether demand presentation may be an establishing operation for challenging behavior (e.g., presenting one math problem at a time vs. presenting an entire math worksheet). The purpose of this article is to review the current literature on demand assessment procedures and to provide practitioners with a practical guide for conducting demand assessments in clinical settings. We provide a summary of our findings along with a brief description of the procedures used for implementing the indirect and direct demand assessments. Further, we created a decision-making guide to help practitioners select which type of demand assessment to conduct with their clients.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2021 · doi:10.1007/s40617-020-00542-8