Differential responding in the presence and absence of discriminative stimuli during multielement functional analyses

We evaluated the extent to which discriminative stimuli (S(D)s) facilitate differential responding during multielement functional analyses. Eight indi viduals, all diagnosed with mental retardation and referred for assessment and treatment of self-injurious behavior (SIB) or aggression, participated. Functional analyses consisted of four or five assessment conditions altern ated in multielement designs. Each condition was initially correlated with a specific therapist and a specific room color (S(D)s), and sessions contin ued until higher rates of target behaviors were consistently observed under a specific test condition. In a subsequent analysis, the programmed were r emoved (i.e., all conditions were now conducted by the same therapist in th e same room), and sessions continued until differential responding was obse rved or until twice as many sessions were conducted with the S(D)s absent ( as opposed to present), whichever came first. Results indicated that the in clusion of programmed S(D)s facilitated discrimination among functional ana lysis conditions for half of the participants. These results suggest that t he inclusion of salient cues may increase either the efficiency of function al analyses or the likelihood of obtaining clear assessment outcomes.