Efeitos das condições de atenção e demanda nas respostas verbais de esquizofrênicos

Abstract

This study aimed at the functionally analysis of the verbal behavior of two people diagnosed as schizophrenic, who were institutionalized patients. The participants, both male, aged 51 and 57, presented a detailed report of hospitalization in several psychiatric institutions. To evaluate the antecedent and the consequence of the inappropriate verbal responses of the participants, we applied some methods such as (a) indirect functional evaluation, (b) functional evaluation through direct observation and (c) experimental functional evaluation, using two designs: (1) of multiple elements and (2) of reversionreplication like AB1B2B3AB1B2B3 within follow-up. Associated with the design (1), four main conditions were used: attention condition, demand condition, alone condition and control condition. The attention condition was manipulated in three subconditions: condition of minimum atention, condition of average attention and condition of maximum attention. All the meetings lasted five minutes, were videotaped, and were individually done with each participant over twenty-four sessions. The multiple elements design sections were selected at random, applied, and later replicated in reverse. For the phases B2 and B3, an institution employee was trained in how to specifically interact with the participants. The baseline of the design (2) is comprised of four sessions in phase A and then another set of four sessions were also applied to each phase of the procedures B1, B2 and B3. For intervention phases B2 and B3, an institution professional in which participants were hospitalized was trained. Upon completion of these phases A and the interventions B1, B2 and B3 were repeated. Finally there were two sessions for the follow-up. Each of the 32 sessions with both participants lasted 15 minutes. Thus, participants were exposed to a series of conditions in which antecedent and consequent events were manipulated and their effects on the appropriate speeches (FA) and upon the inappropriate ones (FI and RV) were observed. The results showed that the inappropriate speeches (FI and RV) were controlled by multiple attention conditions: either to get attention (positive reinforcement) and to escape demands (negative reinforcement). The results also demonstrated that the proposed interventions favored the increase of FA, under the DRA effect, and in addition the reduction of FI and RV as an extinction effect. The results also showed the relevance of the procedures adopted such as the functional assessment interviews and the direct observation of the target behaviors. Consequently, they also demonstrated the importance of the training applied. The results that promoted the discussion of reinforcing the values of social attention may have changed by an OM effect, denoting the relevance of studying the antecedent and consequence events, on the inappropriate speeches of people diagnosed as schizophrenic. Therefore, besides having advanced the research, the results corroborate with the literature of the area and its implications.