Avaliação e tratamento de comportamentos-problema de um adolescente em conflito com a lei

Abstract

The present study had as objective to evaluate the antecedent and consequent events that maintained the problem behaviors of an adolescent who served sentence in institution for minor offender; Also aimed at treating these behaviors. The participant was male, single, aged 17 years. In order to evaluate, it was used strategies of the process of functional evaluation by indirect observation, direct observation of its behaviors at various moments in the institution and functional (experimental) analysis. The functional analysis involved the manipulation of environmental events in four main conditions: attention, demand, alone and control. The attention condition was subdivided into: (1) attention-warning, (2) attention-reprobation and (3) attention-concern. The results showed that there was a greater register of problem behaviors in the attention and demand conditions, than in the conditions alone and control, evidencing, therefore, that these behaviors were maintained by sources of positive and negative reinforcement. In order to deal with the participant's problem behaviors, the differential reinforcement of alternative behaviors was employed, combined with their extinction, thus making it possible to reduce them and increase the desired behaviors. For the control of procedures, the ABAB-type replication-replication design was used, followed by follow-up. It was observed that problem behaviors are susceptible to extinction, as well as social attention can be considered reinforcing to obtain desirable behaviors. The objectives of this study were achieved, proving, as in other studies in the literature, that through the application of behavioral analysis strategies, it is possible to increase the frequency of desired behaviors in adolescents who were serving their sentence in an institution for minor offenders.