JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING WITH AND WITHOUT EXTINCTION AND PUNISHMENT
WAYNE FISHER, CATHLEEN PLAZZA, MICHAEL CATALDO, ROBERT HARRELL, GRETCHEN JEFFERSON, AND ROBERT CONNER
THE KENNEDY INSTrrIUE AND JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSrrY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
Functional communication training has been reported to be a promising treatment for severe behavior problems. In this study, functional communication training alone and combined with extinction and/or punishment was evaluated for 4 clients with severe retardation, behavior problems, and communication deficits. The participants were inpatients on a hospital unit for treatment of severe behavior disorders. They received individualized interventions based on functional assessment that included reinforcement of a communication response with the same function as their destructive behavior. Results showed that for some patients, functional communication training was not sufficient to produce clinically significant reductions in destructive behavior, and the combination of training plus punishment produced the largest and most consistent reductions. DESCRIPTORS: aggression, concurrent operants, functional analysis, functional communica-
tion training, punishment, response classes, response covariation, self-injury
Teaching Clients to emit communicative behav- iors that produce the same consequences as destruc- tive behaviors can result in concomitant reductions in these destructive behaviors (Bird, Dores, Moniz, & Robinson, 1989; Carr & Durand, 1985; Durand & Carr, 1991; Durand & Kishi, 1987; Wacker et al., 1990). These procedures have been labeled “functional communication training” (FCT). Most FCT treatment packages have generally included two major components. First, a functional analysis is conducted to identify the antecedents and/or consequences maintaining the destructive behav- iors. Once these maintaining stimuli are identified, the client is trained to emit a response (e.g., “help me” or manually signing “finished”) that produces the same consequences as the destructive behavior. One interesting aspect of functional communi-
cation training is the efficiency with which it has produced reductions in longstanding destructive be- haviors. Durand and Carr (1991) reported that an
This investigation was supported in part by Grant MCJ249149-02 from the Maternal and Child Health Service of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The authors wish to acknowledge Karla Doepke, Shawn Chinn, and Mark Resnik for their competent work on cases included in this investigation.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Wayne Fisher, Neurobehavioral Unit, The Kennedy Institute, 707 N. Broadway, Baltimore, Maryland 21205.
average of 130 min of training produced rapid, dramatic reductions in self-injury and aggression that were maintained for 18 to 24 months. Func- tional communication training may produce this impressive generalization because, once trained, the client, rather than parents, teachers, or other care- takers, becomes the change agent. Reports on the efficacy of FCT have also been impressive in that clinically significant reductions in destructive be- haviors have occurred with every participant in ev- ery published study (Bird et al., 1989; Carr & Durand, 1985; Durand & Carr
