Taylor J C, Romanczyk R G
John Merck Multiple Disabilities Outpatient Clinic, Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213.
J Appl Behav Anal. 1994 Summer;27(2):251-65. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1994.27-251.
We examined whether, as predicted by research on child effects, we could generate hypotheses about the function of student problem behavior by observing the amount of attention teachers provided to students. In the first phase of the study, we observed the amount of attention teachers distributed among small groups of students who exhibited problem behavior in individual or small-group instructional settings (problem behavior presumably maintained by attention or escape). Based on the amount of attention each student received, we generated hypotheses about the function of his or her problem behavior. In the second phase of the study, we determined the accuracy of these predictions by conducting a brief functional assessment with each student. Results confirmed that, for 14 of the 15 students, we were able to generate accurate hypotheses about the function of their problem behavior. These results suggest the potential efficacy of using the amount of attention teachers distribute among groups of students to generate empirically based hypotheses about the function of student problem behavior maintained by attention and/or escape. These results also illustrate the efficiency of this procedure; by observing teacher behavior, we were able to generate hypotheses about the function of problem behavior for several students at one time.
我们研究了，正如关于儿童效应的研究所预测的那样，我们是否能够通过观察教师给予学生的关注程度，来生成关于学生问题行为功能的假设。在研究的第一阶段，我们观察了教师在个别或小组教学环境中对表现出问题行为的小群体学生所分配的关注程度（问题行为大概是由关注或逃避维持的）。根据每个学生所获得的关注程度，我们生成了关于其问题行为功能的假设。在研究的第二阶段，我们通过对每个学生进行简短的功能评估来确定这些预测的准确性。结果证实，在15名学生中的14名身上，我们能够生成关于其问题行为功能的准确假设。这些结果表明，利用教师在学生群体中分配的关注程度来生成关于由关注和/或逃避维持的学生问题行为功能的基于实证的假设具有潜在的有效性。这些结果还说明了这一程序的效率；通过观察教师行为，我们能够一次性生成关于几名学生问题行为功能的假设。
