Iwata B A, Duncan B A, Zarcone J R, Lerman D C, Shore B A
Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville 32611.
Behav Modif. 1994 Jul;18(3):289-306. doi: 10.1177/01454455940183003.
Multielement and reversal designs used to identify maintaining variables for behavior disorders such as self-injury have several potential limitations, including interaction effects (multielement), inefficiency (reversal), and lack of a continuous control (reversal). This article describes a methodology that minimizes these problems yet captures the best features of both designs. This design consists of several phases implemented in a sequential (A-B-C) fashion, as in the reversal design. However, each phase consists of two conditions, a test and a control, presented concurrently in a multielement format. Five subjects' self-injury was assessed using both the multielement design and the sequential, test-control (or pairwise) design. Results for two subjects indicated that the multielement design produced clear assessment outcomes, and similar findings were obtained using the pairwise design. For two other subjects, the multielement assessments were somewhat undifferentiated, and clearer results were obtained using the pairwise design. The fifth subject's self-injury showed cyclical patterns using both assessment techniques. Benefits and limitations of the sequential assessment methodology are discussed.
用于识别诸如自我伤害等行为障碍维持变量的多元素和反转设计存在若干潜在局限性，包括交互作用效应（多元素）、低效性（反转）以及缺乏连续对照（反转）。本文描述了一种方法，该方法可将这些问题最小化，同时又能兼具两种设计的最佳特性。此设计由几个以顺序（A - B - C）方式实施的阶段组成，如同反转设计一样。然而，每个阶段都由两个条件组成，即一个测试条件和一个对照条件，以多元素形式同时呈现。使用多元素设计和顺序测试 - 对照（或两两对照）设计对五名受试者的自我伤害行为进行了评估。两名受试者的结果表明，多元素设计产生了清晰的评估结果，使用两两对照设计也获得了类似的发现。对于另外两名受试者，多元素评估结果有些难以区分，而使用两两对照设计获得了更清晰的结果。第五名受试者的自我伤害行为在两种评估技术下均呈现出周期性模式。本文还讨论了顺序评估方法的优点和局限性。
