Case Study: Crashing Planes And Tranquil Dreams

Summary
Based on the information provided in case 8, Crashing Planes and Tranquil Dreams, Richard is a 4 years old boy, who is experiencing challenging behaviors at school, as well as at home. Richard lives with both parents, and two older brothers. Richard has been attending the YMCA’s full-day preschool program for the past 2 years. He is described as a “good kid” by parents and teacher, however, he is constantly active, impulsive, and frequently becoming involved in conflicts with adults. Parents are continuously working, and as mentioned in this case, they have to spend most of the time at home yelling at Richard or putting him in time-out as part of his consequences for not listening or misbehaving.
At school, Richard shows behaviors that are similar to the ones experienced at home. Although, he’s described to be a “sweat and bright boy” who does not have trouble interacting with peers, and is able to communicate verbally to express himself, he is described as “hyper” and as someone who constantly engages in yelling, crying and kicking when is time to nap. For instance, and as the scenario describes, in this particular occasion, Richard’s teacher had to redirect him several times for him to finally lie down and take a nap. Richard was pretending to be a plane and making sounds to simulate an airplane crash

As stated in Guideline 3.05 of the BACB Guidelines for Responsible Conduct, behavior analysts should conduct a risk-benefit analysis on the procedures to be implemented to reach the objectives. For instance, we should consider the probabilities of the treatment to be successful, along with the time and distress that will take to eliminate the problem behavior (e.g. extinction burst), and all the effects that the procedure could cause to all other individuals involved (e.g. teacher, family members, and