The Effects of Function-Based Antecedent and Consequent Interventions for Increasing Appropriate Behavior and Decreasing Disruptive Behavior of Preschool Students in the School Setting

The Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) literature suggests that functionbased interventions are effective at improving problem behavior for individuals in a variety of settings. However, the FBA literature is limited in the number of studies that examine the relative effectiveness of function-based antecedent and consequent interventions for reducing problem behavior and increasing appropriate replacement behaviors. Additionally, while there has been a recent increase in the number of studies conducted in the school setting, only a limited number of studies include children in the preschool setting. The purpose of the present study was to extend the literature by examining the relative effectiveness of function-based antecedent and consequent interventions for reducing problem behavior and increasing appropriate replacement behavior for preschool children of typical development. The following study included four preschool-age children. Following a functional behavior assessment, the relative effectiveness of a function-based antecedent and consequent intervention was examined using an alternating treatments design (ATD). Results indicate that both the function based antecedent intervention and consequent intervention were effective at decreasing problem behavior and increasing appropriately engaged behavior, with the function-based antecedent intervention being more effective than the function-based consequent intervention for two of the four participants