Vignette: Allison

A behavioral consultant was called in to consult on Allison, a 10-year-old child with ADHD. Allison was currently taking Ritalin but was having difficulty with her severe tantrum behaviors at home. The consultant interviewed the parents and Allison. The information indicated that Allison frequently became frustrated when asked to do things around the house such as take out the trash, clean up her toys, and pick up toys in her bedroom. Based on this information, the consultant decided that there was a serious problem and some intervention needed to be implemented. The consultant also conducted observation assessments and found that just before Allison began to tantrum, she was told to do some task. The observation also found that Allison’s parents would send her to her room when she began to tantrum and completed the task for her. Therefore, the consultant hypothesized that the function of Allison’s behavior was to escape from doing a task she found to be aversive. Based on this information, the consultant recommended the parents to praise Allison whenever she completed a task but to not allow her to escape the task when she began to tantrum. In order to accomplish this, the parents were to ignore her tantrums and tell her that she had to complete the task. The parents attempted the intervention and found that her tantrums increased initially but extinguished over a period of 3 weeks.