Linking self-management procedures to functional analysis results

Self-management procedures typically focus on decreasing an undesirable target behavior or increasing a behavior that is incompatible with an undesirable target behavior. Although it is effective, self-management generally is designed in such a way that reinforcement accessed through the program may not be functionally equivalent to reinforcement accessed by engaging in the target behavior. In this study, we examined the efficacy of self-management procedures designed to reinforce both behavior that was incompatible with the target behavior and appropriate replacement behavior that was functionally equivalent to the undesirable target behavior. Functional analyses were conducted with three participants. Each participant was then taught to self-manage incompatible appropriate behavior as well as appropriate requests for reinforcement (i.e., escape, attention, materials) identified as functionally related to the problematic target behaviors. Results indicated that the self-management procedures resulted in lower rates of problem behavior and participants appropriately requested functionally relevant reinforcement.