On the Evidence for Interactive Effects During and Following Synthesized Contingency Assessments

Synthesized contingency assessments often arrange multiple stimulus changes (e.g., terminating instructions and providing interactive toy play) to follow problem behavior and to occur response independently across test and control conditions, respectively. A central premise of this approach to functional behavior assessment is that individual contingencies interact when delivered together, producing a reinforcing effect greater than the sum of its parts (i.e., the reinforcing effects of the individual contingencies programmed). Across three studies, we evaluated how often within-participant evaluations from the published literature are consistent with this assumption during (Studies 1 and 2) and following (Study 3) the assessment process. Our results suggest that although such interaction can occur, it appears to do so only in a minority of cases. Implications of these findings for practice are discussed.