Treatment of maladaptive behavior in acquired brain injury: remedial approaches in postacute settings

This article describes remedial behavior therapy approaches for the treatment of maladaptive behavioral sequelae to an acquired brain injury (ABI). Remedial approaches are sophisticated and nonintrusive treatment strategies that involve teaching the individual skills or capacities to manage difficult life circumstances. Functional equivalence is one major category of remedial intervention and involves the determination of the behavioral function of the problem behavior and the teaching of an adaptive alternative response or skill cluster that provides the individual with efficient access to that function. Errorless remediation is a second category and entails teaching the individual to tolerate situations associated with problem behavior through hierarchical exposure to increasingly difficult conditions and reinforcement for successful management of those conditions.