Increasing Compliance Using Operant Motivation and Direct Skills Instruction

A 4-year old boy in a midwestern preschool classroom was referred for assessment and intervention by his classroom teacher for noncompliant behaviors, particularly he insisted on refusing to transition from free play to large group activity. A functional behavior assessment was conducted and resulted in indirect methods of data collection yielding one potential function of problem behavior (escape from task demand) and direct observation resulting in a different function (social positive attention). Following a baseline assessment of noncompliant behavior, the two hypotheses were tested sequentially by means of treatments matched to function. Results indicated that the student responded more favorably to the treatment targeting escape as a maintaining variable for problem behavior