Respostas verbais de pessoas com o diagnóstico de transtorno bipolar.

Abstract

The present study analyzed the verbal responses of two people with a psychiatric diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Participants were one female aged 18, and one male, 35 years of age. For analysis of antecedent and consequent events that controlled the verbal responses indicative of mood swings, was applied the strategies of indirect functional assessment, and direct and experimental, with the use of multiple conditions with four main conditions: attention condition, demand, alone, and control. The attention condition was subdivided into three sub conditions: medicine-condition, family- attention and cellular care-attention for P1; and exclamation attention, sign attention of approval and doubt attention for P2. An intervention program was accomplished through the design of alternate treatments of type ABCA followed by follow-up. The first purpose was to use functional assessment methodology to verify the controlling variables that produced and maintained the verbal responses of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Other was to reduce problem behaviors, while new desired behaviors were installed. The results suggest that social attention controlled about the verbal responses from both participants, whose frequencies decreased throughout the treatment program. These findings were discussed in terms of the importance of using functional assessment process for classes of problem behaviors in people with diagnoses of bipolar disorder.