Most people in the ABA community know that there are 4 functions of behavior.
However, we usually only hear and talk about 3 of them.
The fourth function that usually isn't discussed is behaviors related to pain or stress, which
in technical terms is called automatic negative reinforcement.
Hi, I'm Dr. Mary Barbera, autism mom, board certified behavior analyst, online course
creator, and bestselling author of The Verbal Behavior Approach.
Each week I provide you with some of my ideas about turning autism around so if you haven't
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Today I'm sharing a small excerpt from a recent podcast episode I did where I break down the
4 functions of behavior in an easy to understand format and discuss in detail the all important
forgotten function.
So we have 4 functions of behavior and 1 function is the child cries or hits or cry.
You know, hits, bites, kicks, screams.
So let's just say child bites his hand.
Um, the first function is what we call socially mediated positive reinforcement, which means
in the past when he's bit his hand, it has, um, meant that something good happens.
That he has received positive reinforcement, um, that has followed biting his hand.
So this might be the child bites his hands because he wants something and in the past
he's gotten it.
So this could be child wants candy in the candy aisle at the grocery store.
Okay?
So that's the first function.
Socially mediated positive reinforcement.
Socially mediated means people are involved and positive means he's, he receives the candy,
he's given the candy.
Then we have socially mediated negative reinforcement.
Let's take still, we're talking about the same child, Johnny, he bites his hand when
he doesn't want to do something, to get out of something.
So it's time to take a bath, bites his hand, and then mom says, well, you know what?
He got a bath last night.
He's not that dirty.
Let's not do it.
And now Johnny has learned, okay, so I bite my hand to get things.
I bite my hand to get out of things.
That's socially mediated, negative reinforcement.
So both of those functions, people are involved.
We tend to see those functions a lot in the classroom setting and home settings.
Um, and this isn't just for children with autism, this is children, adults.
Um, these are functions that have been proven as to why behaviors occur.
Okay.
So we have the 2 socially mediated functions.
Then we have 2 additional functions that are called automatic, which means people don't
have to be involved.
The adults don't have to be in the picture.
We could, they can be included in the environment, but it's not, it's not that they are adding
or taking away.
So we have the automatic positive reinforcement.
So, um, it, it tends to feel good or sound good to the student, um, or the child and
Johnny may bite his hand just to stimulate himself.
Um, I know that sounds weird because you would think that that would cause pain, but you
know, even, let's just say he's not really biting on his hands.
He's biting the cuticles, um, of, of your, of his fingers and he's biting them kind of
raw.
Um, he's doing that because he likes the way it feels potentially.
Um, let's use another example, like self stimulatory behavior where the child might be rocking,
might be, um, verbal stimming, like la,la,la,la, blah, blah, blah, making noises.
Um, because either either way, this positive reinforcement, this stimming or this biting
on the cuticles or this rocking, um, some headbanging may occur is because the child
doesn't have the language, doesn't have the, the play skills and other skills that are
needed to occupy his mind.
Okay.
So that's automatic positive reinforcement.
And then we have the automatic negative reinforcement, which is, um, pain attenuation.
So a child might bite his hand if he's in pain or stress.
And this is what happened to Lucas.
Um, he, when he was 13 or 14 years old, he started to bite his hand and he also at that
point was able to tell us he had a headache.
And so he's biting his hand and he was saying head hurts and it was like stabbing pain that,
um, I think the biting actually, uh, drew his attention to the pain in his hand and
then the headache miraculously went away even before I could run downstairs to get Motrin.
So it seems, seems, um, like it.
Why would that be?
So the thing I learned in early August, I went to The National Autism Conference at
Penn state University and I've been there many times.
It's a great conferences always in early August, and it's always great.
And they do live streaming and they, some of, some of the, uh, 3 hour lectures are recorded.
And I saw Dr. Tim Vollmer there who's an expert in these 4 functions of behavior.
He was talking a decent amount about automatic positive and negative reinforcement.
Um, and so I am going to link that in the show notes so that you can watch the lecture
by Dr. Tim Vollmer if you are interested.
I think it's a fascinating lecture.
Um, and I asked him the question, uh, I was interested in studies on automatic negative
reinforcement, the pain attenuation, because I have a strong interest in this.
I know that over time it's been proven that Lucas's, uh, self injurious behavior and aggression
was related to pain and distress.
And so when I asked Dr. Tim Vollmer about the studies on automatic negative reinforcement,
he said very, very, uh, right away, uh, that there are zero studies on automatic negative
reinforcement and that, um, he also added later in the lecture that all animals like
monkeys and birds and rats, they bite on things when they're in distress, when they're in
pain or stressed.
Um, and so he hypothesizes that some of the biting behavior, biting on your hand or biting
others, um, could definitely indicate that the child is in some kind of distress and
possibly pain.
He also added that in the past before anesthesia, that humans were taught or given a towel to
bite on.
Um, my dad said like in the cowboy movies that to get a bullet out, they were, uh, you
know, they’d often show a towel on a person biting on a towel.
So, so just after seeing Dr. Vollmer and him talking about biting and other species and
that, um, I, I just was more, um, interested in, in doing this episode for this podcast.
And I'm also trying to tell behavior analysts, like, we can't just use bite guards and use
helmets if the kids are having self injurious behavior.
We really need to get to the bottom of this and we are, by our ethical code, behavior
analysts need to, um, have these medical conditions ruled out before we go treating problem behaviors
with keep keeping the demand on procedure, which I don't recommend hardly at all, And
um, and, and all kinds of behavioral procedures, we need to figure out what's going on medically.
And it's really impossible when children are either not speaking at all or have limited
language.
I hope you enjoyed this short snippet from the podcast.
If you want more content, check out the podcast at marybarbera.com/podcast wherever you're
watching this, I'd love it if you would leave me a comment, give me a thumbs up, share this
video with others who may benefit.
And for more information, you can attend a free online workshop at marybarbera.com/workshop
and I'll see you right here next week.