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Situation—response (S—R) questions for identifying the function of problem behaviour: The example of thumb sucking
Author(s) -
Lauterbach Wolf
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
british journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.479
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8260
pISSN - 0144-6657
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8260.1990.tb00848.x
Subject(s) - psychology , set (abstract data type) , function (biology) , rule of thumb , thumb , construct (python library) , cognitive psychology , discriminative model , developmental psychology , social psychology , artificial intelligence , computer science , medicine , algorithm , anatomy , evolutionary biology , biology , programming language
The purpose of this study was to construct and validate the prototype of a structured interview or questionnaire for use in the functional assessment of problem behaviour. A set of situation—response (S—R) questions was used to test hypotheses concerning discriminative stimuli S D , inhibitive stimuli (S I ) and the function of a problem behaviour (R). The situations in S—R questions include stimuli which are expected ( a ) to set the occasion for, or ( b ) to inhibit the problem behaviour. The response part includes the problem behaviour as well as behaviour patterns with known functions. The problem behaviour is correlated with those behaviour patterns whose functions it shares. For the study of 26 children suffering from orthodontal problems due to excessive thumb sucking, a structured interview was developed and validated for identifying ( a ) stimuli (S D ) that trigger excessive thumb sucking (problem behaviour), ( b ) stimuli (S I ) that inhibit this response, and ( c ) the function of thumb sucking.