Association for Behavior Analysis International

Behavior analysis has been shown to be effective in addressing behavior in a multitude of populations and settings. However, there are still many populations that remain underserved and understudied in behavior analysis. The current symposium will address various methods of assessment and treatment for criminal offenders, an understudied population. The first presentation will cover a multicomponent intervention to reduce problem behavior and multipharmaceutical interventions with adolescent offenders diagnosed with intellectual disabilities. The second presentation will discuss a study on the use of rules, role playing, and feedback to increase appropriate behavior with adjudicated adolescents. The third presentation will cover the use of relative risk to determine high- and low- risk environmental and behavioral factors related to severe aggression in juvenile offenders. Finally, the last presentation will discuss the use of behavioral interventions such as differential reinforcement to increase appropriate behavior and decrease inappropriate behavior with adult male prisoners. Implications and future directions will also be discussed.

Behavior analysts who currently work with or are interested in working nontraditional populations such as juvenile offenders, prisoners, and/or ID offenders would benefit from the research in this symposium.

Psychotropic medication is frequently used to treat behavior disorders in adolescents with intellectual and other developmental disabilities, despite the risk of severe side-effects from the medication. A multi-component behavioral intervention was associated with a reduction in severe problem behavior presented by three male adolescents attending a residential program in the UK. Prior to their admission to the program, the three young people had been prescribed 3-4 psychotropic medications by community-based psychiatrists. None of the participants were attending school prior to their admission to the program and two had received criminal convictions. Alongside intensive behavioral treatment concurrent with systematic withdrawal of their psychotropic medication, the participants all attended the on-site school and gained a range of awards and qualifications. They were also able to participate in staff supported community-based activities such as food and clothes shopping, visits to the cinema, sports events, and restaurants. During their time in the program, two of the young people went on to attend college and work experience. The success of the behavioral treatment concurrent with the withdrawal of the medication perhaps demonstrates that the increasing prevalence of polypharmacy should be questioned by behavior analysts.

Adolescents who have been adjudicated may engage in excess behavior immediately following verbal directives or reprimands from staff. Excess behavior may include verbal aggression, indices of disrespect (e.g., eye rolling, grunting, obscene gestures), or even physical aggression. These excess behaviors may evoke further directives or reprimands from staff which in turn escalates the excess behavior. These cyclical interactions may result in severe consequences for both staff (e.g., risk of injury, involvement in an incident report) and adolescents (e.g., risk of injury, time out). Teaching adolescents who are detained to respond appropriately to staff directives and reprimands may produce large collateral changes in the way staff interact with adolescents in detention facilities. We taught eleven adolescent males who had been adjudicated to respond appropriately to staff directives and reprimands through the use of behavioral skills training. All participants showed low percentages of appropriate reactions in baseline and high percentages of appropriate reactions during treatment and generalization sessions. Implications of programming to teach appropriate reactions to diverse populations are discussed.

Although functional assessment is an ideal approach for developing behavioral treatment, there are some scenarios in which it is difficult or infeasible. For behaviors that occur infrequently and are extremely dangerous, obtaining objective and reliable information can be challenging. For example, it would be unethical and dangerous to conduct a functional analysis of aggression that is likely to result in severe injury to staff members and it would be difficult to obtain indirect information if the behavior occurs infrequently. However, relative risk can be used to determine risk and protective factors for the occurrence of these difficult-to-assess behaviors. A relative risk calculation compares the conditional (factor-specific) rate or probability of a behavior to the unconditional (overall) rate or probability to provide information about conditions in which the behavior is more or less likely to occur. The current study was conducted in a long-term detention facility for juvenile offenders. We used environmental and resident behavior characteristics to calculate relative risk for severe aggression. Examination of specific factors such as the time of day, day of week, location, and latency to first instance of behavior indicated risk and protective factors for severe aggression. Implications for treatment, assessment, and future research are discussed.