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Updated: Dec 30, 2025

Modeling Verbal Behavior Deficits with the Stimulus Control Ratio Equation, SCoRE
Published on: May 14, 2019
Treating destructive behavior reinforced by increased caregiver compliance with the participant's mands
Todd M Owen1, Wayne W Fisher1, Jessica S Akers1
1University of Nebraska Medical Center's Munroe-Meyer Institute.
Abstract:
Functional analyses sometimes do not identify momentary fluctuations in the function of destructive behavior (Bowman, Fisher, Thompson, & Piazza, 1997). In such cases, individuals may mand for the reinforcer that is currently most preferred and display destructive behavior if that mand goes unreinforced. In this study, we conducted a mand analysis to test whether destructive behavior functioned as a precurrent response that increased reinforcement for the participant's mands. We then evaluated a treatment that matched this function of destructive behavior by providing differential or time-based reinforcement of participant mands in accordance with multiple or chained schedules with reinforcement-schedule thinning. Decreases in destructive behavior averaged 97.4% across cases. We discuss these results relative to the importance of matching treatments for destructive behavior to operant functions for both traditional and idiosyncratic functions of destructive behavior.
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