Lerman D C, Iwata B A
University of Florida, Gainesville 32611.
J Appl Behav Anal. 1993 Fall;26(3):293-319. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1993.26-293.
Independent descriptive (correlational) and functional (experimental) analyses were conducted to determine the extent to which the two methods would yield data supporting similar conclusions about variables maintaining the self-injurious behavior (SIB) of 6 subjects. For the descriptive analyses, subjects were observed in their residences and at training sites at various times each day while observers recorded naturally occurring sequences of specified subject and staff behaviors. The subjects also participated in a day program for the assessment and treatment of SIB, in which they were exposed to functional analyses that manipulated potential maintaining variables in multielement designs. Both sets of data were analyzed via conditional probabilities to identify relevant antecedent and consequent events for subjects' SIB. Using outcomes of the experimental analysis as the standard for comparison, results indicated that the descriptive analysis was useful in identifying the extent to which SIB was related to social versus nonsocial contingencies, but was limited in its ability to distinguish between positive and negative reinforcement (i.e., attention versus escape).
进行了独立的描述性（相关性）和功能性（实验性）分析，以确定这两种方法在多大程度上能够产生支持关于维持6名受试者自我伤害行为（SIB）的变量得出相似结论的数据。对于描述性分析，每天在不同时间在受试者家中和训练场所对他们进行观察，同时观察者记录特定受试者和工作人员行为的自然发生序列。受试者还参加了一个针对SIB评估和治疗的日间项目，在该项目中，他们接受了在多元素设计中操纵潜在维持变量的功能性分析。两组数据均通过条件概率进行分析，以确定受试者SIB的相关先行和后续事件。以实验分析的结果作为比较标准，结果表明描述性分析有助于确定SIB与社交性和非社交性意外事件相关的程度，但在区分正强化和负强化（即注意力与逃避）方面能力有限。
