Resource: Carr, E., &
Durand, M. (1985). Reducing Behavior Problems through Functional Communication
Training. Journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis, 18, 111-126
Functional Communication
Training is one of those ABA teaching methodologies that everyone should know
about, whether you are a parent or professional. Parents and
teachers sometimes naturally implement FCT without realizing they are using an ABA
strategy. I find that to be true with many things
teachers or parents of children with Autism do.
FCT is used to teach and
establish replacement behaviors for inappropriate or harmful behaviors such as
aggression, escape/elopement, non-compliance, etc. When a child is regularly
engaging in disruptive, challenging behaviors that is ALWAYS a form of
communication. Even for a verbal child, but particularly for a non verbal
child, behavior is a way of communicating wants and needs. My non verbal kiddos
are usually the most aggressive kiddos, because they have learned that hits,
kicks, and pinches get people moving. They get people doing what you want them
to do.
The way FCT works, is it is
a strategy used within a comprehensive ABA program. The target behavior is
selected and defined, and then through careful observation and data collection
a communication deficit is discovered. Then a hypothesis is created in order to
select more socially acceptable and appropriate ways for the child to
communicate that will also contact naturally occurring reinforcement.
I know that just sounded
super technical, so here is a real life example to help explain this a bit.
I had a client a few years ago, lets call her Tiffany. Tiffany was 2
years old, nonverbal, and had some aggressive behaviors. Tiffany communicated mainly
through tantrums, leading, or hitting. If Tiffany wanted to eat, she would scream
and hit the refrigerator with her fists. If she was tired, she would bang her
head on the floor. Get the picture? After conducting a FBA, and observing
the dynamic between Tiffany and her family, I determined that the function of
her behaviors was primarily Positive Reinforcement (access to something she wanted). What I also made very clear to the family was
that without a reliable system to communicate her wants and needs, Tiffany had
created her own system. The family and I may think the system isn’t acceptable,
or label it “maladaptive” but it’s really not. Tiffany’s system was quick,
relatively low effort, and it got the job done. People would come running from
all over the house once Tiffany started head banging, and when she pummeled the
refrigerator a snack would magically appear in about 10 seconds. So how did we
teach Tiffany to stop engaging in these challenging and harmful behaviors? With
FCT. We taught Tiffany to communicate her wants and needs and then --and here’s the critical part-- we made
sure that language contacted reinforcement and behaviors did not. So Tiffany
learned that if she slammed her head into Mom’s stomach, Mom would just block
the behavior and ignore her. However if Tiffany signed to be picked up, Mom
would immediately pick her up and lavish her with attention. That’s FCT in a
nutshell: replacing problem behaviors with communication.
When implementing FCT it is
important to decide on a communication system that works for the child, and
that caregivers will accept. This could include vocal language, PECS, sign language,
or a speech generating device. It just depends on the child. Once a
communication method has been determined, it is very important to no longer
reinforce the problem behaviors. To do so would only undermine the effectiveness of FCT.
Reinforcement and Prompting will be key in teaching the new behavior, as well as keeping the
child successful.
The problem behavior must
be put on Extinction so that the child learns that only communication
gets needs and wants met. Depending on the child, this can be done with Antecedent
interventions or Consequent interventions. Antecedent just means before, so
this would focus on preventing the behavior from even occurring. Consequence
just means after, so this focuses more on what to do when the behavior occurs. No one wants to engage in a behavior that
doesn’t contact reinforcement-- thats
Operant Conditioning 101.
The last thing I want to emphasize
about FCT is it’s important to select reinforcement that is most likely to
occur across environments, and in various social settings. In the Carr &
Durand article, the researchers taught the children to say the phrase “I don’t
understand” to replace problem behaviors during difficult tasks, such as academic
work. I love that! Multiple people, whether they are familiar with the child or not, would know how to respond to this phrase.
What I see happen much more commonly, is the therapist will
teach the child to say “Help me”. Here’s my problem with “help me”: the child
doesn’t normally receive help, instead the adult does the task for them. I see
this all the time, and I have been guilty of this as well. A child who only has
a few words walks up to you with their pants half zipped and says “Help me”.
Usually, you are so excited that they are talking that you happily reinforce
the language and then zip up their pants all the way. The problem with this is that over time, the child is
learning that “If I say "help me", then
somebody will do this for me”. Whoa,
see what happened there? That is not what you want to teach. We want to teach
the child to request assistance, not to get out of the task.
I am not saying to stop
teaching your child to say “help me”. Just be sure to provide partial help, and not allow the child to escape the task completely.
**More Reading on FCT:
Fisher,
W.W., Thompson, R.H., Bowman, L.G., Hagopian, L.P., & Krug, A. (1999). Facilitating tolerance of delayed reinforcement during functional
communication training. Behavior Modification.
Shirley,
M. J., Iwata, B. A., Kahng, S., Mazaleski, J. L., & Lerman, D. C. (1997).
Does functional communication training compete with ongoing contingencies of
reinforcement? An analysis during response acquisition and maintenance. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 30, 93-104.
Carr,
E.G., & Carlson, J.I. (1993). Reduction of severe behavior problems
in the community using a multicomponent treatment approach. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 26, 157-172.
Awesome article!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
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