Understanding Behavior Beach Center on Disability, University of Kansas Page 2 of 2

In this example of the A-B-C chart, Arnold's challenging behavior resulted in a time-out. Arnold's mom considers the time-out a punishment; however, this consequence actually may make it more likely that Arnold will engage in the same problem behavior again next time. Why? Recall that Arnold's challenging behavior started to occur when he was told to do his math homework — something he does not like to do, nor does he know how to solve the math questions required in his homework assignment. He got punished because of the challenging behavior, yet at the same time by engaging in the problem behavior, Arnold was able to avoid doing his math homework. Even though his mother thought she was punishing her son, Arnold was allowed to escape/avoid doing a really unpleasant and highly non-preferred task....and he was actually reinforced by getting to avoid this task. The function of his problem behavior was to escape/avoid doing this unpleasant task, and his mother actually helped him avoid doing his homework by "allowing" him to go to time-out for the behavior. Next time, he is quite likely to engage in the same problem behavior again, because he knows this is a way that he can successfully get out of doing his math homework (unless, of course, his mother is clever enough to require him to return to complete at least some of his math homework, after his time-out is over!).

Thus, A-B-C chart allows us to discover the function of behavior more conveniently. This approach is also applied extensively in school settings to reduce challenging behavior ("Individual PBS" in school settings).

From the Beach Center on Disability, University of Kansas. Used with permission. www.beachcenter.org.

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