A SEQUENTIAL, TEST-CONTROL METHODOLOGY FOR CONDUCTING FUNCTIONAL ANALYSES OF SELF-INJURIOUS-BEHAVIOR

Multielement and reversal designs used to identify maintaining variabl es for behavior disorders such as self-injury have several potential l imitations, including interaction effects (multielement), inefficiency (reversal), and lack of a continuous control (reversal). This article describes a methodology that minimizes these problems yet captures th e best features of both designs. This design consists of several phase s implemented in a sequential (A-B-C) fashion, as in the reversal desi gn. However, each phase consists of two conditions, a test and a contr ol, presented concurrently in a multielement format. Five subjects' se lf-injury was assessed using both the multielement design and the sequ ential, test-control (or pairwise) design. Results for two subjects in dicated that the multielement design produced clear assessment outcome s, arid similar findings were obtained using the pairwise design. For two other subjects, the multielement assessments were somewhat undiffe rentiated, and clearer results were obtained using the pairwise design . The fifth subject's self-injury showed cyclical patterns using both assessment techniques. Benefits and limitations of the sequential asse ssment methodology are discussed.