Treatment of pica through multiple analyses of its reinforcing functions.

Cathleen C. Piazza, Wayne W. Fisher, Gregory P. Hanley, Linda A. Leblanc, April S. Worsdell, Steven E. Lindauer, and Kris M. Keeney (1998). Treatment of pica through multiple analyses of its reinforcing functions. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 31, 165-189.

We conducted functional analyses of the pica of 3 participants. The pica of 1 participant appeared to be maintained by automatic reinforcement; that of the other 2 participants appeared to be multiply controlled by social and automatic reinforcement. Subsequent preference and treatment analyses were used to identify stimuli that would compete with the automatic function of pica for the 3 participants. These analyses also identified the specific aspect of oral stimulation that served as automatic reinforcement for 2 of the participants. In addition, functional analysis-based treatments were used to address the socially motivated components of 2 of the participantsÕ pica. Results are discussed in terms of (a) the importance of using the results of functional analyses to develop treatments for pica and (b) the advantages of developing indirect analyses to identify specific sources of reinforcement for automatically reinforced behavior.

DESCRIPTORS: automatic reinforcement, pica, multiply controlled behavior, preference assessments, functional analysis