The Effectiveness of a Behavioral Treatment to Increase In-Home Compliance of an Adopted Adolescent Boy with Multiple Psychiatric Diagnoses

• Published in: Behavioral development bulletin (Philadelphia, Pa.) Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 36 - 41
• Main Authors: Moore, Shannon P, Golden, Jeannie A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Joseph D. Cautilli 2009; Development & Behavior Analysis Special Interest Group of the Association for Behavior Analysis
• Subjects: Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity; Behavior Modification; Behavior Therapy; Comorbidity; Compliance; Human; Intellectual Development Disorder; Male; Oppositional Defiant Disorder; Prompting; Reinforcement; Task Analysis; Treatment Effectiveness Evaluation; ADHD; monetary reinforcement; prompting; behavioral treatment; task analysis; ODD; sequencing
• DOI: 10.1037/h0100512
• ISSN: 1942-0722

This article describes a study in which a 13-year-old adopted adolescent boy who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and borderline intellectual functioning was taught to take personal responsibility for completing tasks by doing them himself instead of waiting for someone else to do them. Using frequency data collection and a multiple baseline across tasks with changing criteria research design, it was demonstrated that a simple in-home intervention involving prompting, reviewing steps, sequencing, and monetary reinforcers was successful in teaching the young adolescent boy to make his own afternoon snack and complete daily chores, while maintaining this effect, with the continued use of monetary reinforcement.