Discussion:
Separation anxiety
Six-year-old Emily has been referred to you by a Pediatric Psychologist. According to Emily's parents, Emily has been experiencing a great deal of separation anxiety after recently starting first grade. She has expressed to her parents that she does not want to go to school, because it "isn't fun anymore." What started out as initial reluctance to go to school has now escalated into screaming tantrums, during which Emily cries and bangs her head and fists on the floor.
Her parents have been very concerned about these outbursts and initially let her stay home from school while they tried to figure out what was bothering her. A meeting with Emily's teacher revealed that she often appeared withdrawn and didn't readily participate in the classroom activities. Despite this, Emily did appear to be at grade level in basic academic skills.
At the same time that the tantrums started occurring, Emily also began to refuse to sleep in her own bed; she would only fall asleep if she was in her parents' bed. Sometimes, Emily's parents would wait until she fell asleep and then carry her back to her own room. However, Emily often would wake up and then cry and scream and wake the entire family. Both parents feel tired and frustrated and have now resigned themselves to allowing Emily to sleep in their room. Emily's family is now turning to you for help with a behavior modification program.
1. Briefly recap the case, discussing your observations and clearly identifying a research question.
2. What are the target behavior(s) and why is it important to address this behavior?
3. Which inadvertent reinforcement strategy may have contributed to Emily's school refusal?
4. Formulate a hypothesis regarding what intervention will result in a specific level and direction of desired change in the target behavior.
5. Choose an effective modification program to test the hypothesis for your hypothetical experiment (e.g. such as a token economy, lottery, or positive reinforcement) and discuss how you would implement your program and the rationale for your choice, based upon current scientific literature.
6. How will the proposed behavior plan be monitored and outcomes analyzed?
7. What do you think are the anticipated results? What may be potential issues of response maintenance, response transfer and/or extinction?
8. How has the scientific method guided this experiment?