Comparison of COA and QABF Informed Interventions

For students exhibiting challenging behaviors that are nondangerous to others and nondisruptive to classroom activities, such as daydreaming and doodling, educators are unlikely to refer these students for more individualized and resource-intensive behavioral support. As a step towards understanding how to address these students’ motivational needs better, we conducted two assessments, an indirect rating scale and a direct assessment of a child’s choice-making, known as a concurrent operant analysis (COA), to identify a reinforcer for work completion for an elementary-aged student in a school resource setting. An alternating treatments design was used to compare work completion when the COA-identified reinforcer was available relative to when the indirect assessment-identified reinforcer was available. Results indicated that both interventions effectively increased work completion. Future research recommendations related to direct and indirect assessments for individualizing interventions for students engaging in interfering behaviors that are nondangerous and nondisruptive are discussed.