Within-session patterns of self-injury as indicators of behavioral function

Area of Science:

• Behavioral Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Applied Behavior Analysis

Background:

• Functional analysis assessments identify variables maintaining aberrant behavior, leading to effective treatments.
• Practical limitations hinder clinicians from conducting extensive functional analyses before treatment.
• Brief assessments show promise, but their alignment with extended analyses requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine a method for assessing the behavioral function of severe self-injury in adult participants.
• To compare the efficacy of within-session analyses with traditional, longer-term functional analyses.
• To determine the viability of brief, within-session assessments for self-injurious behavior.

Main Methods:

• Four adult participants with severe self-injury were assessed.
• Within-session trends in self-injury rates were analyzed by plotting frequency per minute.
• Results were compared to traditional, longer-term functional analyses.

Main Results:

• Within-session analyses proved to be viable procedures for assessing self-injurious behavior.
• The findings suggest that brief, within-session assessments can yield results comparable to extended analyses.
• This method offers a practical alternative for clinicians facing time constraints.

Conclusions:

• Within-session analysis is a practical and effective method for assessing the function of self-injurious behavior.
• This approach offers potential benefits over both other brief assessments and longer-term analyses.
• Further research can explore the conditions under which within-session analyses are most effective.