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Antecedent versus consequent events as predictors of problem behavior.
Erin M Camp1, Brian A Iwata, Jennifer L Hammond
1University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611, USA.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis
|December 2, 2009
Summary
Descriptive and functional analyses of problem behavior show limited agreement. While antecedent events may seem predictive, they were no better than consequences in identifying the function of problem behavior in this study.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral science
- Psychology
- Applied Behavior Analysis
Background:
- Descriptive and functional analyses of problem behavior often yield dissimilar results.
- Attention is frequently a consequence for problem behavior, but not always a functional reinforcer.
- Antecedent events (establishing operations) may potentially predict problem behavior more effectively than consequences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare the correspondence between descriptive and functional analyses of problem behavior.
- To investigate whether antecedent events are better predictors of problem behavior than consequent events.
Main Methods:
- Conducted descriptive and functional analyses of problem behaviors in 7 participants.
- Calculated conditional probabilities using combined antecedent and consequent events.
Main Results:
- Correspondence between descriptive and functional analyses was observed for 4 out of 7 participants.
- Antecedent events did not prove to be superior to consequent events in identifying the function of problem behavior.
Conclusions:
- The study highlights the ongoing challenge in aligning descriptive and functional analyses of problem behavior.
- Neither antecedent nor consequent events alone consistently predicted the function of problem behavior across all participants.
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