O'Reilly, M. F. (1997). Functional analysis of episodic self-injury correlated with recurrent otitis media. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 30, 165-167.

A functional analysis examined the consequences that mainta ined episodic self-injury and the relationship between those consequences and otitis media for a child with moderate developmental disabilities. Results indicated that self-injury occurred only during periods of otitis media. Otitis media may have served as an establishing operation related to escape from ambient noise.

DESCRIPTORS: episodic self-injury, functional analysis, establishing operations, biological setting events, otitis media