Análise funcional do comportamento de agressão física em uma criança com o diagnóstico de autismo

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the problem behavior of an autistic child in a specialized service using the principles of behavior analysis. The participant was a 10- year-old male child. All the sessions were video-recorded and the behavior class of physical aggression to the mother was selected for intervention. For the functional analysis of the conditions that probably controlled or maintained the behavior of physical aggression to the mother, we used the design of multiple conditions with three main conditions and six sub-conditions: 1) condition of attention, manipulated in four subconditions - (1.1) attention, order; (1.2) attention, physical contact; (1.3) attention, reprimand; (1.4) attention, game; 2) condition alone, manipulated in two sub-conditions - (2.1) alone; (2.2) alone with reinforcers; 3) condition of demand. The results demonstrated that in all conditions of attention the occurrences of physical aggression were high, the same occurring in the condition of demand. In both sub-conditions alone, the frequency of behavior of physical aggression to the mother was zero. Since our data pointed to the control of social attention as a controller of the participant s problem behavior, we decided to adopt a program of treatment employing the ABA reversal design and a follow-up. The design was initiated by data collection of Baseline I (A), followed by the phase of Intervention (B), and another phase of Baseline II (A). During the sessions of intervention, we used a program of treatment employing differential reinforcement of alternative answers (DRA), offering social reinforcement for desired behaviors and withdrawing social attention for the behavior of physical aggression to the mother in an extinction procedure (EXT). Our results demonstrated that withdrawing social attention for the behavior of physical aggression decreased these occurrences and offering social reinforcement for desired behaviors increased their frequency. These results showed that the program of treatment and not other variables was responsible for the changes in the problem behavior of the participant.