Identifying possible contingencies during descriptive analyses of severe behavior disorders

Contingencies of reinforcement involve, in part, relations between behavior and subsequent environmental events. In this study we observed 11 individu als with developmental disabilities and severe behavior problems while they interacted with their primary care providers in simulated environments (ho spital therapy rooms). We compared the probability of obtaining attention, escape from instructional demands, or access to materials following instanc es of problem behavior with the background probability of those events. How ever, the focus of our analysis was the evaluation of comparative probabili ties ("contingency values") in the context of relevant establishing operati ons such as diverted attention, instructional demands, and restricted acces s to materials. Results showed that the method was useful in identifying re lations between behavior and subsequent environmental events. Implications for linking descriptive and functional analyses are discussed, and difficul ties in identifying naturally occurring contingencies are considered.