Socially Mediated Escape (SME) 4.0

4.0 Socially Mediated Escape (SME)

Problem behaviors that cause the removal or termination of an aversive event or stimulation mediated by the behavior of another person.

4.1 Socially Mediated Escape: Unpleasant Social Situations

·         Unpleasant social situations elicit problem behavior that causes another person to terminate the event (i.e., the child hits the crying child next to him, and is subsequently removed from the group by an adult).

4.2 Socially Mediated Escape: Lengthy task or instruction

·         Value of escape becomes established due to the aversive nature of the lengthy task, and problem behaviors are maintained by others who remove the task after the problem behavior occurs.

4.3 Socially Mediated Escape: Relatively difficult task or instruction

·         Value of escape becomes established due to the difficulty of the task, and problem behaviors are maintained by others who terminate the difficult task following problem behavior.

4.4 Socially Mediated Escape: Aversive physical stimuli

·         Behaviors that result in another person terminating an aversive physical condition (i.e., urinating in clothes that are too tight so that caregivers change the tight clothing).

Socially Mediated Escape Example: Children are seated in a small group. One child begins to cry. Another child hits the crying child. The individual who hit the crying child is then removed from the group by an adult, which terminates the aversive event. The problem behavior caused another person to terminate the unpleasant social situation. The behavior involved the mediation of another individual. The problem behavior resulted in escape.

Replacement Behaviors for Socially Mediated Escape

Alternate direct escape form (do something by yourself)

·         Directly produces escape in a safe and socially acceptable way

Escape Mand (ask someone to stop something)

·         Teach the individual to request removal or escape in a socially appropriate manner that is mediated through another individual

Tolerance Training Option (tolerate for ____amount of time, then all doen with ____.)

·         Differential Negative Reinforcement of Other behavior (DNRO); set a specified time that you would like the child to remain in the aversive condition, and allow removal from the condition in the absence of target behavior occurs during that time interval.