Signature Assignment Scenario

You are a board certified behavior analyst (BCBA) who works for a company that provides in-home applied behavior analysis services to children between the ages of 3 and 21 years.You have recently been hired by Tara Howat to help her with her son Rhys (pronounce like "Reese"). Rhys is a 4-year-old male child who lives with Mother and two older sisters (ages 8 and 7 years). Rhys does not have any contact with his father, nor doany of the other family members.

Rhys is a silly, active, fun-loving child who loves telling jokes and learning facts about animals, particularly dinosaurs. In his free time, he likes to play with animal toys, build things out of blocks, play outdoor games with his sisters, make things with Play-Doh, and watch videos on his mother's phone. His favorite snacks are Doritos chips, and his favorite foods are instant microwavable macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, and black beans. He also loves most sweet foods, particularly chocolate.

Rhys is a physically healthy child. Two months ago, he was diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He is not currently taking any mediation to assist with his ADHD at this time. His developmental pediatrician has indicated that there are no other physiological conditions that account for Rhys's problematic behaviors. Rhys also has no allergies or dietary restrictions at the moment.

Rhys attends day care at a local community center from 8:30 am to approximately 5:00 pm Monday-Friday. His mother walks him to school every morning and drives him home every afternoon. His day care class consists of 14 other children between the ages of 4-5 years, with-one-classroom teacher and two teacher's aides. His teachers have stated that they are becoming increasingly frustrated by Rhys's unsafe behavior and that he likely will not be able to continue to attend the day care if those behaviors are not brought under control.

Rhys's vocal repertoire is slightly behind that of his similar aged peers. He can speak in full sentences, but he tends to converse using shorter, 3-to-5word sentences and generally speaks with a quiet, shy volume when not angry or agitated. He can communicate most of his wants and needs, though often won't use his vocal language when he is upset. He can recognize many sight words, especially ones that are common to his environment. He can also name all of his letters when shown them and can writemost of them, though he will oftenwritemany of them backward. He does not appear to know the sounds the letters make.

Rhys is fully independent with most of his daily living skills. He is able to use the bathroom by himself, though he often needs assistance to thoroughly wash his hands. He can pick out his own clothes and dress himself, though he often requires several reminders to do so. He has no trouble eating by himself or properly using utensils.

His main responsibility around the house is to pick up after himself (e.g., putting his toys in the bin, putting his shoes by the door, putting his clothes in his hamper).While he is able to complete these tasks on his own, he rarely does so, even when asked. Being asked to clean up is often a trigger for a tantrum or aggressive behavior.

The Howat family lives in a townhouse in a suburban area outside of a major metropolitan city.Rhys has his own bedroom in the house which is adjacent to his sisters' shared bedroom and down the hall from Tara's room. Rhys spends most of his time either in his room or in the family living room where most of the children's toys are located, as are the television and the family computer. The family house shares a wall with their neighbors on either side. The Howat's are on generally friendly terms with their neighbors; however, the neighbors have begun to express their concern to Tara that Rhys is getting "out of control."Several families in the neighborhood have expressed that they are no longer willing to let their children play with Rhys due to fears that he will hurt or be mean to them.

For almost 2 years, Rhys's challenging behavior has progressively increased. Tara's chief concerns are Rhys's aggressive behavior (which typically involve hitting, kicking, and biting), his destructive behavior (which typically involves throwing things or intentionally breaking things), his inappropriate words (which typically involve saying swear words to his mother and/or sisters), and his running off on his own (which typically happens while walking to school or when out in public running errands). The aggressive behavior, destructive behavior, and inappropriate words occur most frequently, with Tara estimating between 20-50 instances of the behaviors occurring every day.

You conduct an extensive functional behavior assessment (FBA) that suggests Rhys's behaviors likely serve multiple functions. Specifically, Rhys has learned that his challenging behaviors are the most effective way to have his wants and needs met, and to not have to do the things he does not like to do.

Common situations in which challenging behavior occurs include:

1. Wanting an item that someone else has (usually his sisters or his mother). He will often try to take the item from them and if that doesn't work, he will hit or kick them. When this happens at home, Tara will often just let Rhys have the item because it is too difficult to try to manage his behavior in those moments.
2. Being given something he does not want instead of something he does want. This often happens when he is given a meal or a snack that he doesn't want, or when given an item or activity he doesn't want to play with even when complaining that he is bored. These situations often end up with Tara giving Rhys his standard, go-to items such as instant macaroni and cheese instead of a more substantial meal, or watching YouTube videos on her cell phone.
3. Being told not to do something such as climb furniture, throw things on the ground, dump things out of their containers, etc. In these moments, Tara will often attempt to move Rhys or take the item away from him, though that often results in the behaviors escalating to the point where she walks away from him and leaves him to continue doing what he was doing.
4. Being instructed to doatask he does not want to do, such as cleaning up, setting the table, putting his jacket on, etc. In these situations, Tara will constantly repeat her directive, often yelling at Rhys when he doesn't listen. She will also often give him 5 second count down, through when the count ends and he still hasn't done what she has asked, she will either continue to yell at him to complete the task or she will walk away in exasperation and exhaustion.

During your observations of Rhys's challenging behavior, you notice they tend to occur as part of a hierarchy. While aggressive behavior and inappropriate words tend to co-occur, destructive behavior tends to occur after the previous behaviors and only when those behaviors are ineffective at meeting his needs. Thus, destructive behavior occurs much less frequently than Rhys's aggressive behavior and inappropriate words. In addition, Rhys tends to emit a number of consistent precursor behaviors before he engages in other challenging behaviors. These precursors include:

• Agitated, frustrated, or angry facial expressions
• Hopping up and down
• Clenching fists together
• Stomping one foot
• Vocalizations that are louder than his normal volume
• Saying "no," "I don't want that," "give me it," "I want to have ____," or other variations of those statements in a drawn out, high pitch, and whining tone of voice

Rhys currently receives 15 hours per week of 1:1 ABA services in his home, which are divided into five 2-hour sessions Monday-Friday in the afternoons, as well as two 2.5-hour sessions on the weekend in the mornings. These services are provided by two experienced behavior technicians who have each been with your agency for 2 years. The behavior technician alternate session. During sessions, the behavior technician works toward a few socially significant skill acquisition goals, mainly relating to Rhys having positive interactive play with his sisters, as well a few per-academic skills.

As the BCBA, you observe Rhys's sessions once per week. You also conduct 1 hour per week of parent training with Tara to help her learn strategies and procedures for minimizing, preventing, and replacing Rhys's challenging behaviors.

Tara communicates to you that she wants to be involved in her son's ABA services and will try her best to follow your professional recommendations, though she has doubts about her ability to do so when you or the behavior technician are not there.On a typical day when Tara gets home from work, she is responsible for picking up all three of her children from school, assisting them with their homework, making dinner, cleaning up, getting all of her children are bathed, and ensuring that things are sufficiently prepared for the next day. She reveals that she feels overwhelmed and tired all of the time, as well as guilty that she isn't able to effectively parent her children. Furthermore, her younger daughter has begun to exhibit challenging behavior as well, possibly as a means of getting Tara's attention. These behaviors consist mostly of tantrums and while they are not as severe as Rhys's, they also appear to be increasing in frequency.

When you talk with Rhys, he mentions that he doesn't know why he hits people and that he just gets mad sometimes. He also states that he likes going to his day care and wants to be with his friends and his sisters. In your observations, you notice that he does often have very sweet interactions with his mother and sisters, and they do regularly have fun together.

For this portion of the Signature Assignment, describe at least one antecedent modification that will be used to help minimize or manage the client's target behaviors. Remember that antecedent modifications are things that are done prior to the occurrence of any target behavior that A) make the problem behavior less likely to occur, B) make the replacement behavior more likely to occur, and/or C) help to ensure a safe and effective learning environment.You may choose any antecedent modification you feel would be appropriate, however, it must be one that is clearly informed by the function of the problem behavior and directly based on information contained in the client summary. You shouldwriteyour antecedent modification as a description of what the behavior technicians should do in order to properly implement the procedure. All steps and components should be thoroughly detailed such that the antecedent modification(s) could be reasonably implemented based on the descriptions alone.

After describing your antecedent modification(s), you will next describe your rationale for why you select that particular modification and why you suspect that the modification will be an effective component of the behavior intervention plan.Your rationale should clearly tie back to specific information contained in the client summary and should describe the specific behavioral principles at work. As part of this rationale, you will need to include at least TWO citations from the empirical literature that support your use of the antecedent modification. These citations should be of actual research articles (i.e., ones in which an independent variable is manipulated, and a dependent variable is measured). Discussion articles with no empirical data will not count toward the two required citations. In addition, these citations must be from articles that were not assigned as required or optional reading for the AB556 Behavior Change Procedures I course. All citations should also be listed inAPAformat on a References page.

Finally, you should state at least one antecedent modification that you intentionally did notselect for inclusion in your behavior intervention plan, as well as your rationale for why it was not included. This may include modifications that are not appropriate given the function(s) of the behavior, ones that are impractical for the given situation, ones that are not consistent with best practice or ethical standards, or any other reason you can think of.

All sections of this part of the Signature Assignment should be completed directly in the Signature Assignment Template previously submitted for Part 1. This submission will be graded based on the Signature Assignment Rubric and will be worth 50 points.

Use the following checklist to ensure you have included all of the necessary components for this part of the Signature Assignment.

Antecedent modification is thoroughly described.
Antecedent modifications are written as instructions for behavior technicians to follow.
Antecedent modifications are appropriate given the function of the target behavior and the details of the client summary.
Rationale is provided for why the antecedent modification was selected.
Rationale clearly describes how function of the target behavior and the details of the client summary informed the selection of the antecedent modification.
Rationale describes the behavior principles that make the antecedent modification effective.
Rationale includes two citations from the empirical literature.
Citations included are not ones that are assigned as required or optional reading.
Citations are listed on a References page inAPAformat.
An antecedent modification that was not selected is stated.
Rationale describes why the antecedent modification was not selected.
Rationale for why the antecedent modification was not selected is logical.
All sections are well written with no language, grammar, or spelling errors and no instances of mentalistic or teleological language.