A Clinical Demonstration of Correlational and Experimental Analyses of Precursor Behavior

Behav Anal Pract. 2020 Jun 22;13(4):966-971. doi: 10.1007/s40617-020-00452-9. eCollection 2020 Dec.

Abstract

Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities are at an increased risk for engaging in severe problem behavior, which is often preceded by less intense precursor behaviors. These precursor behaviors may be a viable option as target behaviors for functional analyses in situations where evoking severe problem behavior is not ideal. We identified precursor behaviors through a correlational analysis and confirmed their membership in the same response class as more severe problem behavior through an experimental analysis.

Keywords: Conditional probabilities; Functional analysis; Precursor behavior; Severe problem behavior.