Assignment
Case Study I: Stephan is 5 years old and has limited verbal communication skills. His teachers describe his behavior as "impossible to control." He is aggressive toward peers during unstructured play periods and requires a time-out at least 2-3 times during each 15-minute play period. He seems to be "at his best" when a high school volunteer (who comes on Wednesday afternoons) plays with him.
A. What is the hypothesized function, intent, or purpose of the challenging behavior? What is the basis for generating this hypothesis?
B. What additional information is necessary to confirm or disconfirm your hypothesis, or to generate a different hypothesis?
C. Based on your hypothesized function of the student's behavior (from the previous activity), what are three potential activities that could be used to change the behavior? Please make sure you indicate whether the intervention is positive or negative reinforcement or punishment, and indicate why you think that would work.
D. What potential difficulties could arise when implementing each of the interventions?
Case Study II: Jasmine is a 5-year-old girl with developmental delays in adaptive skills. Jasmine often has difficulty getting along with her peers. She hits and pinches other children until they cry or scream loudly. Jasmine then stands and watches the children until the teacher comes to the area, comforts the children who were hit, and scolds Jasmine. After such incidents, Jasmine wanders off to another area of the room and seems to play happily.
A. What is the hypothesized function, intent, or purpose of the challenging behavior? What is the basis for generating this hypothesis?
B. What additional information is necessary to confirm or disconfirm your hypothesis, or to generate a different hypothesis?
C. Based on your hypothesized function of the student's behavior (from the previous activity), what are three potential activities that could be used to change the behavior? Please make sure you indicate whether the intervention is positive or negative reinforcement or punishment, and indicate why you think that would work.
D. What potential difficulties could arise when implementing each of the interventions?