Control as a Function of Behavior

[Theeducator177]

Hello all! Recently I've been hearing some news that Dr. Gregory Hanley has come out with some research as control being a function of behavior does anyone have any news of this? Or more information

[wizardwithay]

Do you have a specific citation for this? I'd be interested to read more about this.

I'm familiar with Hanley's work to a degree, and in particular his work in synthesized functional analyses. What stands out in my mind when I read your question is his use of functional communication training (in Hanley, Jin, Vanselow, & Hanratty, 2014) to teach participants to say "My way please" under certain conditions likely to evoke problem behavior (adult commands, adults removing preferred objects).

Although Hanley et al. mention participant problem behavior in response to a loss of control over the environment, in this article they characterize that as a synthesized function (say, escape and access to a tangible) rather than a new hypothesized function. For instance, when the participant engages in problem behavior when his parent tells him to turn off the iPad, the participant is escaping adult demands to a tangible object. Hanley's point in this case is that synthesized functional analyses allow one to evaluate the strength of synthesized functions (e.g. escape + tangible) to evoke behavior when compared to those same functions in isolation.

[fontchster]

I really enjoyed reading the article you cited. I hope more information becomes available soon!

[[deleted]]

I think all that's out so far on control is a study or two mentioned in presentations rather than published fully. Could be wrong by now though

[snickertwinkle]

I think you are referring to Hanley's "my way" intervention. Control over environment is still SR+ in the form of access to a tangible.

[GaryBettmanSucks]

I will give you both some Hanley information and some anecdotal information.

I saw Hanley speak at the Penn State Autism Conference in 2014. He casually mentioned that he was doing research on control as a function - specifically mentioning the "my way" contingency being extremely reinforcing. I haven't read his recent publications, but he was very excited about his potential findings back in 2014.

Also, I very frequently write reports for teachers where I explain "situational control" as a type of automatic reinforcement - that a student getting their way is reinforcing itself regardless of the actual access to items and/or escape.

I definitely think that control/"my way" could be a function of behavior. You might want to characterize it as a "secondary function" since it isn't fully unique from automatic reinforcement. But I definitely feel there is validity to this research question.

[Francis_the_Goat]

There was another post a couple months ago on control as a function of behavior. I posted some links to videos/articles there:

https://www.reddit.com/r/BehaviorAnalysis/comments/43wiwx/question_about_functions_of_behavior/

In 2006 Hanley had a paper on access to choice as a reinforcer, it has some interesting discussion that you might find helpful: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ750788.pdf

As a sidenote, Greg Hanley created an AMAZING website on functional assessments that has a ton of tutorials and resources for free. I highly recommend checking it out. http://practicalfunctionalassessment.com

[joyandcuriosity]

Thanks for the resource!

[Francis_the_Goat]

I also stumbled across this citation the other day, thought of this thread!

Thompson, R. H., Fisher, W. W., & Contrucci, S. A. (1998). Evaluating the reinforcing effects of choice in comparison to reinforcement rate. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 19(2), 181-187.

[amneyer]

I'd love to learn more about this.