Enhancing Parent-Implemented Functional Communication Training by Assessing Indices of Happiness

Abstract

Indicators of well-being can be important measures for improving the treatment of challenging behavior and family quality of life. We examined methods for assessing activities associated with indices of happiness (IOH) in a 5-year-old girl with Down syndrome, to mitigate challenging behavior during parent-implemented functional communication training (FCT). During the initial phase treatment (FCT + extinction), challenging behavior persisted, and parents expressed an emerging sense of hopelessness. Treatment modifications informed by the assessments resulted in a > 90% decrease in challenging behavior, promoted reinforcer schedule thinning, improved cooperation with daily routines, and also increased the child’s IOH and parent satisfaction.

Keywords:

• Challenging behavior
• Down syndrome
• functional communication training
• indices of happiness

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Matthew D. Bowman and Diksha Bali for support with data collection. The authors did not receive financial support from any organization for the submitted work.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional review board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained for all individual participants included in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request.