Speaker 1: You're listening to why we do what we do? Welcome
Speaker 1: to why we do what we do? I am your
Speaker 1: synthesized contingency host. Let's already use that one before, in
Speaker 1: which case I'm just your running out of bright ideas
Speaker 1: host Abraham, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Your aren't you excited for another acronym? Host Shane.
Speaker 1: We are a psychology podcast. We talk about the things
Speaker 1: that humans and non human animals do, and we are
Speaker 1: in the part the fourth part of a series of
Speaker 1: discussions about a tool used by behavior analysts very commonly
Speaker 1: in clinical settings and I guess experimental settings, and which
Speaker 1: we are trying to determine why certain challenging behaviors happen,
Speaker 1: particularly among individuals who might have impacts from diagnoses, trying
Speaker 1: to understand how to get their needs met in a
Speaker 1: way that is not through those sort of challenging behaviors. So,
Speaker 1: if you have not heard anything up to this point,
Speaker 1: we will try to do a brief recap on what
Speaker 1: we have discussed so far. I do still encourage you
Speaker 1: to go back and check out those previous discussions to
Speaker 1: have the foundation that you would need to access this discussion.
Speaker 1: But I can't control what you do so welcome either way.
Speaker 1: If you're joining us for the first time, then I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoy what you hear in this discussion. And
Speaker 1: if you're a returning person and welcome back, I'm glad
Speaker 1: you have continued to seek what we are providing out
Speaker 1: for your entertainment and knowledge growth. But that's what we're
Speaker 1: up to today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're so excited and ideally and we always kind
Speaker 2: of jinx ourselves when this happens, but this will likely
Speaker 2: be the last of the functional Analysis series as we
Speaker 2: kind of wrap things up, bring it to present day,
Speaker 2: and maybe even look at some strong opinions that we
Speaker 2: have on this.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we get into our hot takes.
Speaker 2: I'm excited.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I had planned for this to prob be
Speaker 1: three discussions, and obviously we needed more than that, so
Speaker 1: four feels like it should be sufficient, but I could
Speaker 1: be wrong. Yeah, yeah, yeah, As you said, we tend
Speaker 1: to be long winded. We know a lot about this,
Speaker 1: We have a lot of personal experience with this, We
Speaker 1: have stories to share and insights to impart upon everybody,
Speaker 1: and so we sometimes will go off script a bit
Speaker 1: and just elaborate, and that does mean more and longer episodes.
Speaker 1: But I thought we were gonna wrap this up in three,
Speaker 1: so I think we should be able to wrap this
Speaker 1: up in four.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Either way. It is August nineteenth, so happy International bo
Speaker 1: or maybe Boo Day. Maybe it's a bobow a balbo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a balbo bal bun. It's bal buns. We
Speaker 2: like bal buons.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: It's an International Orangutang day.
Speaker 1: Okay. It is National Aviation Day.
Speaker 2: I love that. It's National Hot and Spicy Food Day.
Speaker 1: Ooh, celebrate. I'm here for it. So you're National Medical
Speaker 1: Docimmetrist Day.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it is even better. It's National root beer
Speaker 2: Float Day. Oh.
Speaker 1: I love a beer float. Someone once took me up
Speaker 1: with one of those. That'd be great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, somewhere is like the perfect time for a root
Speaker 2: beer float, or like a like an orange creamsicle float,
Speaker 2: like an orange soda float.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, I think I know what I'm doing after
Speaker 1: we record.
Speaker 2: Today In Australia, Like, you know, they call cream soda spiders.
Speaker 2: Do you order a spider? Like that sounds horrifying? I like,
Speaker 2: is this a real thing?
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 2: Yeaheah no no no no, But like I like I was.
Speaker 2: I was at a hotel, like, and I was walking
Speaker 2: by and They're like, we have milkshakes and spiders, and
Speaker 2: I was like, that is horrific. But apparently that's what
Speaker 2: they call their cream sodas.
Speaker 1: Okay, they just put the spiders in the milkshake.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it tastes like orange.
Speaker 2: Oh no, wow.
Speaker 1: Fact of the podcast. Hopefully not Hopefully we've got more
Speaker 1: contents the podcast. But all right, well, moving on, National
Speaker 1: sand Castle and Sculpture Day.
Speaker 2: Fun, so fun. They do contest here. It's really cool.
Speaker 2: It's National Soft ice Cream Day.
Speaker 1: I like some soft ice cream.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a potato Day, Love me some potatoes too. Some
Speaker 1: good foods going on in.
Speaker 2: This food day. Yeah, get to root your float and
Speaker 2: some French fries. Oh my god, life is good. It's
Speaker 2: World Humanitarian Day.
Speaker 1: Oh beautiful. Love that. It is World Photography Day. It's
Speaker 1: a good one too.
Speaker 2: Yes it is. And it is Minority Enterprise Development Week.
Speaker 1: Okay, very nice. Yeah, all right, Well, the holidays are
Speaker 1: fun and we do them because this podcast comes out
Speaker 1: on a holidays day of things, and it's fun to
Speaker 1: just communicate those whimsies as a little teaser, a little
Speaker 1: easing into the discussion whatever we're going to be talking about,
Speaker 1: even if it's a light discussion. I don't feel like
Speaker 1: this one particularly heavy. It's technical, but not one of
Speaker 1: those more like emotionally heavy episodes that we have done
Speaker 1: in the past. So yeah, there's just a fun thing
Speaker 1: we'd like to do. So anyway, if you enjoy what
Speaker 1: you have heard so far, and you enjoy what we
Speaker 1: say after this, and you're thinking to yourself after this
Speaker 1: podcast ends, I'd really like to help these guys out.
Speaker 1: There's a variety of ways you can do that. You
Speaker 1: can leave us a rating, a review, like subscribe, tell
Speaker 1: a friend, or join us on Patreon, and I will
Speaker 1: talk about those things in a little bit more detail
Speaker 1: at the end of this discussion, so that I do
Speaker 1: not delay our beginning any further than that. But I
Speaker 1: think we've done all the intro things. Are we ready
Speaker 1: to talk about fays, Yes we are. Okay, let's do
Speaker 1: a quick recap on what we've talked about in the
Speaker 1: first few episodes up to this point. First, what we
Speaker 1: did is we discussed the fact that the concept of
Speaker 1: a functional analysis, before it was an experimental technique, was
Speaker 1: largely a theoretical exercise. It was the unpacking the variables
Speaker 1: in sort of a discussion format about what could be
Speaker 1: happening with some aspects of human behavior. But then in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties, essentially we get to some studies that
Speaker 1: are being published that describe an experimental arrangement in which
Speaker 1: variables are tested to try and determine what are the
Speaker 1: reasons that some individuals who have disabilities might be engaging
Speaker 1: in some challenging behaviors. And in those original studies, in particular,
Speaker 1: there were self harm type behaviors. They're injuring themselves, and
Speaker 1: they were trying to figure out what is going on
Speaker 1: with these individuals.
Speaker 2: Right, And the goal of those arrangements were to primarily
Speaker 2: isolate variables, right. It wasn't to test lots of variables together.
Speaker 2: I mean, just like any sort of experiment, we want
Speaker 2: to figure out you know, functional relations or relationships between
Speaker 2: those variables that we mean manipulate and the outcomes of
Speaker 2: that said manipulation. And so that's essentially what this new
Speaker 2: arrangement was designed to do, was to figure out causes
Speaker 2: of behavior by isolating singular or at least as close
Speaker 2: to singular variables that we could to see if it
Speaker 2: did influence behavior one way or another. And what we
Speaker 2: found was pretty exciting because it was pretty pretty I mean,
Speaker 2: we were able to see pretty clearly that there were
Speaker 2: some influences.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and conceptually the way they sort of thought through
Speaker 1: this was all right, there could be social reasons for
Speaker 1: this that like, it's something about what other people are doing,
Speaker 1: that's why we see this self harm, or it could
Speaker 1: be something else. It could be either in a way,
Speaker 1: either self stimulatory or and we didn't say this before,
Speaker 1: but it could be a medical thing. So it's like,
Speaker 1: if this is an internal issue why they're doing this,
Speaker 1: we could rule that out from it's a social issue
Speaker 1: from why they're doing this. And so in the social
Speaker 1: issue we can test either positive reinforcement which is being mitigated,
Speaker 1: delivered and otherwise arbitrated in a way I guess by
Speaker 1: some other people, some external third party, or negative reinforcement
Speaker 1: arbitrated by that external third party. That was the way
Speaker 1: we'll sort of break out the social aspects and if
Speaker 1: it's not those, then there's something internal going on that's
Speaker 1: it might be self stimulatory or it might be And
Speaker 1: they didn't really delve into the extent to which they
Speaker 1: determine a medical condition, but it could be some kind
Speaker 1: of medical condition, right, right, And so which is kind
Speaker 1: of clever too if you think about, like, why are
Speaker 1: these behaviors happening? Is it something about their social environment
Speaker 1: or something about their internal environment. That's a really helpful
Speaker 1: way too to just distinguish those variables.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And then one of the conversations that we
Speaker 2: were having as we were kind of going forward was
Speaker 2: also this issue because we as we're talking about kind
Speaker 2: of doing an experiment and how quote unquote time consuming
Speaker 2: it could be or anything like that, which we did
Speaker 2: talk about in debunking some of those things. One of
Speaker 2: the questions that kind of always came up was why
Speaker 2: couldn't we do this through interviews or why couldn't we
Speaker 2: do this through observations? And really the truth was it
Speaker 2: just wasn't as robust. You could get some of those answers,
Speaker 2: you could get some of those variables, but it just
Speaker 2: wasn't as salient as robust as you would get through
Speaker 2: that kind of that initial arrangement and kind of messing
Speaker 2: with those variables. So while those could be useful tools
Speaker 2: as part of the assessment process, they weren't sufficient in
Speaker 2: in identifying and solidifying causation as part of this kind
Speaker 2: of overall discussion around the causes of behavior.
Speaker 1: And I'm just thinking back to on the basic experimental
Speaker 1: arrangement of the functional analysis in reflecting on the episodes
Speaker 1: we've recorded so far, I was wondering if we've communicated
Speaker 1: clearly enough that essentially in the testing arrangement that they've
Speaker 1: developed to try and isolate these variables, the way that
Speaker 1: they do that is we are going to strategically and
Speaker 1: repeatedly try and apply the hypothesized reinforcement to see if
Speaker 1: we can make that challenging behavior increase. And the reason
Speaker 1: that they do that is to see, like, does this
Speaker 1: happen more when this situation is present? Because if that
Speaker 1: if it does, then that that means that situation is likely.
Speaker 1: The reason it's happening in the first place was essentially
Speaker 1: the hypothesis. And that's the thing that I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people struggle with when they first encounter these
Speaker 1: is like, Wow, you're deliberately making more happen in these
Speaker 1: situations with the challenging behavior that could be really dangerous.
Speaker 1: And that got us speak into various types of refinements
Speaker 1: and procedures that people have developed around functional analyses that
Speaker 1: are things like, we'll reinforce precursor behaviors, so rather than
Speaker 1: allow it to escalate significantly, it's what are the things
Speaker 1: that they do that are leading up to that high
Speaker 1: magnitude challenging behavior and will reinforce those those initial steps
Speaker 1: first so it doesn't get all the way there, and
Speaker 1: then if that works, then that tells us that that's
Speaker 1: still the function, still the variable that's relevant for that behavior,
Speaker 1: Why it's happening, that's the cause. But we don't have
Speaker 1: to let it get to the point where it's too dangerous.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, which I think is critically important and actually
Speaker 2: I think that is going to be a good we
Speaker 2: kind of get into today's stuff. Another reason why we've
Speaker 2: got this kind of new synthesized variation of a functional
Speaker 2: analysis and kind of the updated stuff there, because ultimately
Speaker 2: came down to like do you need to evoke behavior
Speaker 2: to capture the function of the behavior. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of comments and a lot of thoughts and a lot
Speaker 2: of things that we can unpack with that, but that
Speaker 2: is I think also just one of the central concerns
Speaker 2: of doing functional analysis, which the Handley article from twenty
Speaker 2: twelve also helps to kind of debunk that and spend
Speaker 2: a little bit of time kind of like unpacking variations
Speaker 2: in like different ways that we can go about conducting
Speaker 2: fas in meaningful ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, for those of you who have been listening there,
Speaker 1: we've done a fairly decent handful of referencing studies and
Speaker 1: articles that have been published on this topic. Those are
Speaker 1: our primary sources that we have used for this discussion
Speaker 1: so far. All of those links have been in the
Speaker 1: notes so far. I did add some more over subsequent episodes,
Speaker 1: so like the first couple of episodes published wouldn't have
Speaker 1: all of the references, but the most recent couple should
Speaker 1: have all of the references, just because as we we've
Speaker 1: recorded this over a few weeks and just updated some
Speaker 1: more things as we went through, and so just in
Speaker 1: case you were looking for those and didn't see them,
Speaker 1: they should be there now. Yeah, wow, that recap took
Speaker 1: us all the way to our first ad break.
Speaker 2: We are we are so skilled at this.
Speaker 1: So good. So we all right, well we do have
Speaker 1: actual new content to get into for you, but you know,
Speaker 1: we've we teased it up so well with our previously
Speaker 1: on segments that we have talked ourselves into an ad break,
Speaker 1: so we'll see you on the other side. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. We have described in great detail all the
Speaker 1: things we've discussed so far about functional analyzes, and so
Speaker 1: we can get into the bulk of today's discussion. Are
Speaker 1: you ready for the segue? Yeah, let's do it all right, great,
Speaker 1: So we're gonna start by actually talking about something we
Speaker 1: have brought up in previous discussions here, but we're going
Speaker 1: to focus on this for a moment, and that's what
Speaker 1: we do. Once we have finished the analysis from the
Speaker 1: functional analysis, we have done, the experiment, we've isolated. Okay,
Speaker 1: these are the variables that tell us what is going
Speaker 1: on for this individual when they engage in these challenging behaviors.
Speaker 1: What are they trying to get out of this situation?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: And we described a few times up to this point
Speaker 1: that the purpose is to determine that what is called function,
Speaker 1: like what they're trying to get out of it. We
Speaker 1: call the function the function of the behavior is they're
Speaker 1: trying to get this right, and that from that function,
Speaker 1: the most common next step that you'll see in a
Speaker 1: lot of the literature that uses Functionalyzies is to teach
Speaker 1: the individual to communicate their needs with some kind of
Speaker 1: communication method rather than turn to those more challenging forms
Speaker 1: of behavior. And sometimes that communication is they might do
Speaker 1: a picture exchange, which we have never done a full
Speaker 1: episode on, but essentially it's like it says, these are
Speaker 1: for individuals who do not use very much vocal verable behavior,
Speaker 1: and they might exchange like they might have and iPad
Speaker 1: that has a picture they can point to. They might
Speaker 1: have physical pictures they can hand to somebody that's a
Speaker 1: thing that they need. It could be a break or
Speaker 1: a snack, or what attention or play someone, whatever it
Speaker 1: is they need. They learn that they can do that
Speaker 1: instead of the challenging behavior. Depending on why they were
Speaker 1: doing that challenging behavior, we create that communication strategy. They
Speaker 1: might also do sign language. They might also say vocally
Speaker 1: what it is that they need. There's a variety of
Speaker 1: things that they could do. So let's using our We'd
Speaker 1: previously described an example of an individual in a classroom,
Speaker 1: and what was happening in this situation was that the
Speaker 1: teacher would be engaging with other students and the student
Speaker 1: would start hitting their head on the desk, and then
Speaker 1: the teacher would come over and attend to that student,
Speaker 1: and then the student would stop hitting their head on
Speaker 1: the desk, but as soon as the teacher left, they'd
Speaker 1: hit their head on the desk again. And essentially from
Speaker 1: this hypothesized fake situation we concocted the reinforcement was attention
Speaker 1: from the teacher. Basically, the student just wanted to have
Speaker 1: one on one time with the teacher, and that the situation.
Speaker 1: So the function of the behavior was to get the
Speaker 1: teachature's attention. So what we might do instead with that
Speaker 1: result is then teach the student to raise their hand
Speaker 1: instead of banging their head on the desk. They could
Speaker 1: raise their hand, and when they do that, then that
Speaker 1: results in the teacher's attention. The individual can get what
Speaker 1: they need, which is the teacher's attention, without hurting themselves, Right,
Speaker 1: that's sort of the purpose in the arrangement. That's the
Speaker 1: next steps after we've done that analysis piece.
Speaker 2: Yeah, without hurting themselves in a much easier way, less
Speaker 2: effortful way. Yeah, there's lots of things there now. Shrewd
Speaker 2: listeners and those who are already familiar with these arrangements,
Speaker 2: you may already see or know that there can be
Speaker 2: an unworkable outcome to this communication training called functional communication
Speaker 2: training or FCT. You know, again, of course more initials
Speaker 2: to memorize. That is, when the individual requests the thing
Speaker 2: that they need, what happens when they are constantly requesting
Speaker 2: the reinforcer? We have to kind of like think about that.
Speaker 2: If they're constantly requesting the reinforcer, do we continuously deliver
Speaker 2: that reinforcer? What happens when the reinforcer is not available
Speaker 2: or not forthcoming? Can the reinforcer itself be provided endlessly
Speaker 2: and individual is never asked to tolerate times or situations
Speaker 2: in which that is not available at all for fear
Speaker 2: that they might return to their challenging behavior. That's always
Speaker 2: a kind of a constant conversation that we have, is like,
Speaker 2: if they're going to ask for it, what happens when
Speaker 2: we have to say no? Right, because it can't be
Speaker 2: around forever? And that is that is always kind of
Speaker 2: like I feel like, if it's not in the forefront
Speaker 2: of the discussion about FCT, it's always kind of a
Speaker 2: looming discussion as part of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, using our example of the kid in
Speaker 1: the classroom, like Okay, So the kid raises their hand,
Speaker 1: the teacher gives them attention, and then the teacher needs
Speaker 1: to go work with other student. The kids raise their
Speaker 1: hands again. They have to stop what they're doing and
Speaker 1: come back and pay attention to the student. And then
Speaker 1: they turn away to go help other students and the
Speaker 1: kids raise their hand again, they have to go back
Speaker 1: and pay attention to the student. Like is that sustainable?
Speaker 1: Like can we expect? Like the problem is like this
Speaker 1: kid's just gonna always be raising their hand to get
Speaker 1: their teacher's attention because that's the thing that they want.
Speaker 1: And if they don't get that, what do we think
Speaker 1: is going to happen?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Right, They're going to eventually go back to the strategy
Speaker 1: that worked before, which is hitting their head on the desk,
Speaker 1: which is a whole other conversations called resurgence. It's worth
Speaker 1: digging into at some point, but you can imagine those
Speaker 1: situations people who are listening to thinking like, yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean, you just can't do this endlessly. You just
Speaker 1: can't honor every request forever. And you're right. So there
Speaker 1: were several attempts early on to explore how we might
Speaker 1: teach these new communication methods and account for how to
Speaker 1: manage situations when that request doesn't work. But how do
Speaker 1: we do that? Do we just provide the reinforcement only
Speaker 1: some of the time that they ask, so it's like
Speaker 1: they might request and that we don't do it some
Speaker 1: of the time, but we do do it some of
Speaker 1: the time. Do we just stop providing it for periods
Speaker 1: of time and just say, like wollw it's just not available.
Speaker 1: Do we provide it in smaller quantities maybe they just
Speaker 1: get used to having a little bit less of it,
Speaker 1: or we do huge quantities so that they're satisfied and
Speaker 1: don't want anymore. Like variations of this were tried in
Speaker 1: several experiments that we'll go and outline a couple of
Speaker 1: the takeaways from those.
Speaker 2: Right, So in nineteen ninety eight, and this was further
Speaker 2: developed in two thousand and one, some studies started using
Speaker 2: something from basic research literature with rats and pigeons from
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifties called a multiple schedule. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: that people who are listening to this are like super
Speaker 2: stoked to get into schedules of reinforcement again, and those
Speaker 2: like simple and complex schedules of reinforcement. I'm sure, you're thrilled. Yeah,
Speaker 2: to start like diving into that. For me, it would
Speaker 2: bring up some like ooh, some emotions because I remember
Speaker 2: studying conjunctive schedules and multiple mixed schedules and I was like,
Speaker 2: I hate this. It's a lot, but it's actually like
Speaker 2: super powerful. Yeah, I knew you would like it, but
Speaker 2: like it's cool. It's cool once you like really understand
Speaker 2: how it works. Right, So multiple schedule this arrangement. This
Speaker 2: is an arrangement in which, once the individual has learned
Speaker 2: a communication strategy, the clinicians then teach the individual to
Speaker 2: recognize a signal that tells them that while the signal
Speaker 2: is present, their request will be honored. Every single time.
Speaker 2: When the signal is not present, their request will not
Speaker 2: be honored. So, like, you're going to describe a simple
Speaker 2: version of this, so I won't get into that. You'll
Speaker 2: probably explain this much better than I will. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So just to make sure that you, like, we'll
Speaker 1: paint a pictures so you hear AU say that there's
Speaker 1: a request or there's a signal that says your requests
Speaker 1: are going to be honored, and then a different signal
Speaker 1: that says as they will not and that's the basic
Speaker 1: arrangement here. And just to be clear for those of
Speaker 1: you who are maybe already in the know about how
Speaker 1: multiple schedules work technically, that is, a multiple schedule can
Speaker 1: be a lot of things. It does not have to
Speaker 1: be this. This is just the way it most commonly
Speaker 1: appears in this particular setting. But you could actually have
Speaker 1: like a bunch of different situations, a bunch of different
Speaker 1: signals that are all correlated with different schedules of reinforcement,
Speaker 1: and that would be a multiple schedule. It doesn't just
Speaker 1: have to be on off. There's only two conditions. There
Speaker 1: could be a lot of different conditions and they could
Speaker 1: all have different signals, and they could all They don't
Speaker 1: have to be honored every single time too. It could
Speaker 1: be honored every other time, or every variable third time,
Speaker 1: or something like that. But the most common way that
Speaker 1: this is arranged in this clinical setting is basically on
Speaker 1: off during one condition, it's always available during another. It's
Speaker 1: not so in a simple version of this, there is
Speaker 1: some very clear cue, such as let's say a large
Speaker 1: green sign for when requests will be honored, and then
Speaker 1: there's maybe a large red sign for when the request
Speaker 1: will not be honored, and although some variations demonstrated, you
Speaker 1: can simply alter the availability queue. So let's say you
Speaker 1: have the green card and the example, and then it's
Speaker 1: absence of that then signals that it is not available. Right,
Speaker 1: so you don't necessarily need both signals. You could just
Speaker 1: have one means that is available and the other one
Speaker 1: means it's not, or vice versa. You could just have
Speaker 1: the one that says us not available, and when that
Speaker 1: one's gone, it just always is. That could also be
Speaker 1: a way to do it, and the queue can also
Speaker 1: be something fairly subtle and portable, such as a wristband.
Speaker 1: There's been some studies that specifically used like a different
Speaker 1: colored wristband, and some studies have even explored teaching the
Speaker 1: individual to recognize more common environmental or behavioral social cue. So,
Speaker 1: for example, if the teachers out their computer, they might
Speaker 1: not respond when I raise my hand, but when they
Speaker 1: leave their computer, then when they raise their hand, they
Speaker 1: will respond and come over and give that attention. So
Speaker 1: the basic description of this is like, all right, let's
Speaker 1: go at the really simple one. In this classroom, the
Speaker 1: teacher puts a green poster board up, and now the
Speaker 1: students when if the students aware the green poster are born.
Speaker 1: We've taught them how it works. When they raise their hand,
Speaker 1: the teacher is going to come to them, but the
Speaker 1: teacher does need to deal with other students too, so
Speaker 1: then they put up the red poster board and now
Speaker 1: whenever the student raises their hand, they do nothing, but
Speaker 1: that green poster board is coming back. It'll probably only
Speaker 1: be a few minutes too, Like the teacher is going
Speaker 1: to go around help other students, and then they're available again.
Speaker 1: They put the green poster board back up, and the
Speaker 1: student raise their hand, the teacher comes over and we'll
Speaker 1: talk to them. And then they essentially learn that like, well,
Speaker 1: that red sign is temporary, it will be back, because
Speaker 1: there's a very clear queue, like the thing is there,
Speaker 1: then it's not, then it's there, then it's not like
Speaker 1: it will be back, and they just learn to wait
Speaker 1: until it's available again, and then they know as soon
Speaker 1: as it's back that they can get the thing that
Speaker 1: they need again. But that way it's a much more
Speaker 1: manageable situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I've been seeing this more
Speaker 2: at conferences too, where there are clear signals for like
Speaker 2: how people like to be greeted like are you a hugger?
Speaker 2: Are you handshake? Are you no contact? And like I've
Speaker 2: seen those signals too, where it's like just really clear,
Speaker 2: like hey, I can engage this behavior here in this
Speaker 2: context because it will you know this is not available here.
Speaker 2: This signal four, This is not available here, So I
Speaker 2: will not do this here. And so I've been seeing
Speaker 2: that more conferences lately, too, kind to help kind of
Speaker 2: like discriminate, like who you get how to engage with people.
Speaker 1: I love that I would like, I would like the
Speaker 1: hug one, please.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I too would be the hug one. But
Speaker 2: I also know that people are like, no thanks, and
Speaker 2: that's perfectly fine too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, many people don't want that kind of attention. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's why I tend to just keep my distance,
Speaker 1: because you know, you don't want to get in so
Speaker 1: in space. But if there was someone who I like
Speaker 1: was wearing a clear signal that they were like also
Speaker 1: the hug type, then I'd be like, get over here,
Speaker 1: we're hugging this out and bring it in, baby, that's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So now colloquially, colloquially, I always have a hard
Speaker 2: time saying that word because I just blend all my
Speaker 2: sounds together colloquially.
Speaker 1: The three vowels right next to each other that all
Speaker 1: make a distinct sound.
Speaker 2: Make that a hard word, it's just a's just a
Speaker 2: tough word. Now, you could think of it as teaching
Speaker 2: the individual that they just need to wait a little
Speaker 2: bit and eventually what they want will be available again.
Speaker 2: And there have been many, many studies over the last
Speaker 2: three decades showing that multiple schedules are successful at reducing
Speaker 2: the frequency of requests only at certain times, but maintaining
Speaker 2: that strategy for the individual without them returning to the
Speaker 2: challenging behavior. So it's really effective in improving behavior and
Speaker 2: shaping behavior in these ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the issue can be that we're concerned that if
Speaker 1: we take away the availability of the reinforcement that they
Speaker 1: will stop requesting and go back to that challenging behavior, right,
Speaker 1: But what we've seen with the multiple schedule arrangements is
Speaker 1: they maintain a high rate of the request, meaning that response,
Speaker 1: that new behavior we've taught them is working, but they
Speaker 1: only do it when the reinforcement is available, and then
Speaker 1: we don't see a return to those challenging behaviors, and
Speaker 1: so we get basically it's the trifecta. It's that the
Speaker 1: perfect All three things that we needed to have happen
Speaker 1: are happening right right. So that's why it's been kind
Speaker 1: of cool. And I don't have any better cues to
Speaker 1: help signal for skip these future ends. Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about the way that you might teach
Speaker 1: an individual to communicate what they need and then teach
Speaker 1: them to recognize cues that signaled the availability or lack
Speaker 1: of availability, such that they learned that the lack of
Speaker 1: availability is temporary and that they will eventually get what
Speaker 1: they need again, and therefore they have a strategy to
Speaker 1: get what they need but also tolerate periods of time
Speaker 1: when it's not available. Yeah, all right, so let's dig
Speaker 1: into the new stuff here. Yeah, So, in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 1: the world of functional analysis and FAS experienced as largest
Speaker 1: ever paradigm shift, and I would say rift in the
Speaker 1: sort of behavior analysis community, And maybe some people would
Speaker 1: would disagree with that characterization, and that's totally fine. There
Speaker 1: have been other things that have happened that people didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily always agree with in this in these ways, but
Speaker 1: this one was kind of a big shit. So a
Speaker 1: study by Handley and friends explored a new way to
Speaker 1: approach and conduct functional analyzes now like standard functional analysis
Speaker 1: analyzes before, they did the same thing where they conducted
Speaker 1: an interview to determine the relevant features about the target
Speaker 1: behaviors and context, and then they would observe the individuals
Speaker 1: in sort of a natural environment for like fifteen to
Speaker 1: thirty minutes. Yes, so that was fairly common to how
Speaker 1: functional analysies had been done. They did create their own
Speaker 1: version of an interview. They did make it so that
Speaker 1: it was very open ended. They had a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunity for the caregivers, the relevant stakeholders to provide and
Speaker 1: elaborate their own thoughts and details on this so that
Speaker 1: they could try and use that to tailor as closely
Speaker 1: as possible their environments that they create to that individual's
Speaker 1: actual circumstance. And then that whole observation thing is actually
Speaker 1: not necessarily standard in functional analyses practice, where you just
Speaker 1: watched the individual for a little bit. That does happened sometimes,
Speaker 1: but they made it just part of the process.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the way I understood this process is like it's
Speaker 2: a little bit more in line with kind of like
Speaker 2: the full FBA process that includes an FA. So like
Speaker 2: you do your interview, you do your observation, so you've
Speaker 2: got your indirect and your direct assessments, and then you
Speaker 2: do your test, which is either gonna your functional analysis
Speaker 2: or the synthesized FA that we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2: So like to me, like that whole process follows in
Speaker 2: line with kind of like FBA processes. At least it
Speaker 2: is a general as a general rule, yeah, for the
Speaker 2: most part, or at least as some of those hallmarks. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So after they do the interview and after they do
Speaker 2: the observation, they create a pair wise assessment or they
Speaker 2: created a pair wise assessment in which the tested condition
Speaker 2: consisted of every probable situation that might provoke the target behavior,
Speaker 2: as well as every probable reinforcer that might follow and
Speaker 2: reinforce the target behavior, calling this a synthesized FA. And
Speaker 2: basically what they were kind of doing here was like that,
Speaker 2: like in these conditions, you could turn the behavior on
Speaker 2: and off. Yep. It's essentially what they were doing with
Speaker 2: all those yep. You hear folks use those terms a lot,
Speaker 2: like you should be able to turn the behavior on
Speaker 2: and off really quickly. Now, they alternated this with the
Speaker 2: control condition to detect whether or not there were elevated
Speaker 2: rates of the target behavior during the synthesized target condition.
Speaker 2: And when we say the target behavior too, like the
Speaker 2: behaviors we're interested in are not necessarily the problem behavior itself.
Speaker 2: It might be related behaviors or like a functional response class,
Speaker 2: so it could be lots of like low grade, low rate,
Speaker 2: low intensity behaviors that are assumed to be related to
Speaker 2: the major problem behavior that they're assessing.
Speaker 1: Now. In the original version of the functional analysis, essentially
Speaker 1: what they were testing is is this a positive reinforcement
Speaker 1: thing or negative reinforcement thing. In this synthesized version, they're
Speaker 1: not really trying to determine if it's positive or negative.
Speaker 1: They're just trying to show that the target behavior could
Speaker 1: be reliably provoked and reinforced in that synthesized condition, the
Speaker 1: one that has all the possible triggers and reinforcers in it,
Speaker 1: all in one condition, rather than isolating them all across
Speaker 1: different conditions. It's just one alternated against that control, and
Speaker 1: following that they could then teach the individual to request
Speaker 1: that outcome specifically, as we have seen with those other
Speaker 1: functional communication training applications, and then after they've reliably done that,
Speaker 1: they directly build and practice opportunities for what they call
Speaker 1: delay and denial tolerance training to teach the individual that
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll request the thing that they want and it
Speaker 1: won't be available and they just are going to be
Speaker 1: okay with that, and they just build up that tolerance
Speaker 1: as well, where sometimes they have to be told no,
Speaker 1: sometimes they'll have to be told to wait, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they'll get the thing that they want, yeah, and that
Speaker 1: they'll just be okay with the fact that those are
Speaker 1: the arrangements that they have, and they just do a
Speaker 1: nice slow sort of shaping exercise practice to get them
Speaker 1: prepared to handle those situations. And so that's again a
Speaker 1: pretty different sort of approach to a lot of the
Speaker 1: other sort of techniques that have been developed up to
Speaker 1: this point.
Speaker 2: Right now, the shakeup is almost inevitably going to stir
Speaker 2: the pod as, they say. One was a challenge to
Speaker 2: the claim that the since sized fas could save time.
Speaker 2: Proponents of since sized fas claim that these yielded outcomes
Speaker 2: and fewer sessions than the standard FA would be able
Speaker 2: to do. However, independent analysis found that this was not
Speaker 2: always the case. And that a standard FA might be
Speaker 2: just as or even more efficient at determining functions of behavior.
Speaker 2: Now that being said, there are a large number of
Speaker 2: published examples of the efficiency of the synthesized FA, and
Speaker 2: I've gotten to run a couple and it's pretty wild,
Speaker 2: Like you can do it like ten minutes.
Speaker 1: They're fast, and the bulk of the peer reviewed literature
Speaker 1: does seem to show that they are very fast and
Speaker 1: that they're very efficient, and there have been some other
Speaker 1: independent researchers showing that sometimes they are not the most
Speaker 1: efficient way to go. Sure, So like just throwing that,
Speaker 1: I was like, we try to just be as like
Speaker 1: clear and what am I open I guess as possible
Speaker 1: about like the reality situation, which is like there are
Speaker 1: people who argue that this is not that fast, and
Speaker 1: there are some studies to show that it's not necessarily
Speaker 1: the most efficient, but most of the people who've done this,
Speaker 1: most of the studies that are out there that do
Speaker 1: look at this, do show they're very fast and they're
Speaker 1: very efficient, and they just they do just take less time.
Speaker 1: You can pretty reliably from that synthesized FA show that,
Speaker 1: as you said, you can turn the behavior on and
Speaker 1: off and be like, well, this definitely works moving on,
Speaker 1: and then you don't spend very much time on it, right,
Speaker 1: that is a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you kind of let your treatment be your like
Speaker 2: your follow up and go like okay, so we were
Speaker 2: able to kind of turn behavior on it off really quickly,
Speaker 2: like we were able to demonstrate a functional relation here
Speaker 2: in this context with these synthesized fas not to go
Speaker 2: ahead and do interventions and then let's see what the
Speaker 2: rates of behavior look like from there, Like you can
Speaker 2: kind of like like that follow up is almost like
Speaker 2: your replication piece a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so we're kind of we're in this whole
Speaker 1: synthesized functional analysis discussion part here, and there's again there
Speaker 1: was sort of some many people who did not like
Speaker 1: this direction that this was going, and so they were
Speaker 1: sort of trying to articulate what about it they had
Speaker 1: concerns with. One of them was time, or at least
Speaker 1: the claim that it was faster, which again most peer
Speaker 1: VOOD studies show that it is, but there were some
Speaker 1: that show that it wasn't always just a thing to know.
Speaker 1: Another argument that was made again against the idea of
Speaker 1: the synthesized FA was that because all possible reinforcers were
Speaker 1: delivered at once, there might be a couple of unintended consequences.
Speaker 1: The strategy might a be including reinforcers that were not
Speaker 1: actually relevant to the target behavior, so they were like,
Speaker 1: there's just extra stuff in there that's unnecessary and therefore
Speaker 1: make it maybe less efficient, and b actually be creating
Speaker 1: functions for the challenging behavior that did not previously exist,
Speaker 1: because all of a sudden they were superimposing new reinforcers
Speaker 1: as consequences for that target behavior that weren't there before,
Speaker 1: but do function as reinforcers, and so now they're reinforcing
Speaker 1: that target behavior when they weren't before. And there were
Speaker 1: a handful of independent studies between twenty sixteen and twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen that showed exactly that that if you did a
Speaker 1: synthesized FA the way they did this is basically did
Speaker 1: like a standard functional analysis and a synthetized sized function
Speaker 1: analysis and then another standard functional analysis, and showed that
Speaker 1: reinforcers that were not previously applied to that challenging behavior,
Speaker 1: when they started being applied to that challenging behavior, they
Speaker 1: started showing up as reinforcers for that challenging behavior later
Speaker 1: when they weren't before, Meaning we're creating new functions for
Speaker 1: the challenging behavior and new reinforcers rather than trying to
Speaker 1: make the behavior decrease. It's now open to a wider
Speaker 1: variety of reinforcers, and that that could have some challenging
Speaker 1: outcomes for people who are working in a clinical space
Speaker 1: trying to support these individuals with better communication techniques. That
Speaker 1: was essentially the argument.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Now, for the first outcome, they compared to a STANDARDFA,
Speaker 2: some of the reinforcers used in the synthesized analysis analysis
Speaker 2: were not necessarily to determine a clear data pattern. So
Speaker 2: like basically there was they added more than they needed
Speaker 2: to write.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you didn't need all that.
Speaker 2: Now. In the second case, some individuals challenging behavior started
Speaker 2: occurring with new reinforcers during the synthesized FA that were
Speaker 2: not maintaining the behavior before the synthesized FA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but nevertheless, the synthesized function analysis has been widely
Speaker 1: studied across various independent researchers and even across I've now
Speaker 1: seen this actually published from people in many different countries
Speaker 1: and has demonstrated extremely high reliability and validity, with many
Speaker 1: clinicians reporting how much easier it is to implement, how
Speaker 1: effective of a tool it has been for establishing behavior functions.
Speaker 1: In some cases, these are people who would have never
Speaker 1: tried to do an FA, but they did feel like
Speaker 1: they could do a synthesized FA, and so where they
Speaker 1: would have otherwise maybe wasted time making things up to
Speaker 1: try and solve a hypothetical behavior function, they now can
Speaker 1: actually do an experimental arrangement to determine a behavior function
Speaker 1: and do it faster. So there's sort of speaking to
Speaker 1: the idea here that this has been pretty effective. And
Speaker 1: although there have been these studies showing that it can
Speaker 1: create new behavior functions, there have also been studies showing
Speaker 1: that it doesn't necessarily create new behavior functions, and there
Speaker 1: is like the extent to which it does create new
Speaker 1: behavior functions we don't know yet. And to be fair,
Speaker 1: I have not kept up in the last few years
Speaker 1: with this back and forth that was happening, and so
Speaker 1: it's possible that I missed a couple of articles that
Speaker 1: did show like the actual rates of introducing new functions
Speaker 1: versus not. But suffice it to say that like just
Speaker 1: because you do a synthesized functional analysis does not mean
Speaker 1: you will have new behavior functions, right right, It could
Speaker 1: be the case, and maybe we need to determine what
Speaker 1: are the conditions under which that's likely to be the case.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, they've just been refining and
Speaker 1: making their techniques better and better and more efficient and
Speaker 1: more effective over time. So most of the research that
Speaker 1: will be done in this will show ways to avoid
Speaker 1: even that potential pitfall, if that is one that is
Speaker 1: worth worrying about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they've come up with variations too, so like
Speaker 2: just like our like the standard FA, like the analog
Speaker 2: FFA that we know in all the variations like latency
Speaker 2: based THATFAS and all that, like this process, the synthesized
Speaker 2: functional analysis component, the ISKA, if you will, like all
Speaker 2: of that. Now there are variations of it that are
Speaker 2: latency based. There are trial base there's a few new
Speaker 2: ones too that have shown up which are really cool.
Speaker 1: That is really cool. Yeah. Actually I was aware that
Speaker 1: they had it made sense, like I kind of thought
Speaker 1: that's where they were going with it, But as I said,
Speaker 1: I hadn't watched in the last couple of years. As
Speaker 1: far as I know, none of them have ads. All Right,
Speaker 1: we are back. We have been unpacking. Essentially one of
Speaker 1: the last big changes in the world of functional analyzes
Speaker 1: was this the synthesized functional analysis, just a different way
Speaker 1: of approaching how to do this. So I want to
Speaker 1: get also to some some like concerns people have had,
Speaker 1: questions people have had in our own hot takes about
Speaker 1: this as well. And the first thing I want to
Speaker 1: start with is people who are way outside of like
Speaker 1: behavior analysis, who have been hearing this and maybe felt
Speaker 1: like I just I just don't understand what's happening here.
Speaker 1: You keep saying you're reinforcing problematic behaviors. Why, like this
Speaker 1: feels like this is not something you should be doing right, sure,
Speaker 1: and so I want to do a try and feel
Speaker 1: like I can do my best to address this. And
Speaker 1: one of the common ways that people have talked about this,
Speaker 1: and Handley did in that twenty twelve article as well,
Speaker 1: is it's like an allergy test, and an allergy test
Speaker 1: you're trying to create a small allergic reaction to something
Speaker 1: to see what are the things that are causing your
Speaker 1: allergic reactions? Right, So they can't just interview you and
Speaker 1: see like do you like what do you think is
Speaker 1: making you allergic, and then you tell them and they're like, great,
Speaker 1: we'll just treat that. Like that might not work because
Speaker 1: you could you might not know what's the thing that's
Speaker 1: making you allergic, and even if you think you know,
Speaker 1: you might be wrong. So the whole idea here is
Speaker 1: like we just need to create the reaction so we
Speaker 1: can figure out what's creating the reaction and we can
Speaker 1: use that to try and address it in a different,
Speaker 1: less harmful way. Right, we'll get into this in a moment.
Speaker 1: But during the functional analysis again, like the safety is
Speaker 1: still like the number one priority. So it should never
Speaker 1: be the case, and not saying that it never was
Speaker 1: or that it never is, but it should never be
Speaker 1: the case that you allow a behavior to have occurred
Speaker 1: at such high magnitude that anyone's in actual danger, Like
Speaker 1: you should have enough safeguards in place that when that
Speaker 1: challenging behavior happens, it is mild enough or there is
Speaker 1: enough safety equipment in place that it cannot actually cause
Speaker 1: actual harm to anybody. That is how the ideal would
Speaker 1: be arranged. Now, again, probably people have not been as
Speaker 1: diligent about ensuring safety as they should have been, and
Speaker 1: there maybe are still people who aren't as diligent about
Speaker 1: that as they need to be, but it should be
Speaker 1: the case that the are relatively low stakes as minimized
Speaker 1: opportunities for risk as possible in these situations. And rationale
Speaker 1: that most people have argued here is that, like, we
Speaker 1: have to be able to reliably show what are the
Speaker 1: variables that are contributing to this, which means we have
Speaker 1: to make it happen at least a little bit, right,
Speaker 1: do you have some more to add to that? Sort
Speaker 1: of like, in response to this concern about reinforcing challenging behaviors.
Speaker 2: The thing that I kind of will always go back to
Speaker 2: is like behavior is so variable and flexible that like
Speaker 2: the effect that you're going to get even at the
Speaker 2: minimum effect, the minimal effect that you would get from
Speaker 2: a test like this, is easily reversible. Like I think
Speaker 2: that's the other side too, is like, and when I
Speaker 2: say easily reversible, all I mean is that if we
Speaker 2: can change behavior so quickly within an hour, then we
Speaker 2: can change it back within even last time. I would imagine,
Speaker 2: so like you know, like we are creating kind of
Speaker 2: like unique learning histories. But I do think it's I
Speaker 2: think it's really important to remember that, like that behavior
Speaker 2: change that we see can be to pray depending on
Speaker 2: how we intervene following those answers. That's something I kind
Speaker 2: of always think about when I think about those arguments,
Speaker 2: is kind of go like, well, behavior is not static,
Speaker 2: like responses are not static, and responses to environmental contigencies
Speaker 2: are not static either, So like that's something that can
Speaker 2: change rapidly.
Speaker 1: This is a very good point. Yes, that's definitely a
Speaker 1: very good point. And the other thing I think that
Speaker 1: I would others have said, whether or not I need
Speaker 1: to weigh on this in my own personal opinions, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I think people might ask like, well,
Speaker 1: but why do this at all? Like why not just
Speaker 1: use the observations, why not just use the interviews? Why
Speaker 1: not even just use like you know that you have
Speaker 1: some kind of effective reinforce, or just shape up different behaviors?
Speaker 1: And I mean, thore are some valid positions to take,
Speaker 1: Like I can see you saying like, let's just not
Speaker 1: create the opportunity for harm to happen at all and
Speaker 1: minimize risk and instead just do what we can with
Speaker 1: what we have where there is zero risk, like there's
Speaker 1: none whatsoever, because we have we're using the interviews, we're
Speaker 1: using the questionnaires, we're using observation to do those things,
Speaker 1: and or we're just using reinforcement like a blunt object
Speaker 1: to just reinforce different paviors. And I understand that position,
Speaker 1: and I do think the response that most people have
Speaker 1: had to this is like going back to the example
Speaker 1: we used in a previous discussion from Hanley, like, imagine
Speaker 1: you in a hospital and you need water and you
Speaker 1: can't communicate, and they keep they do all the nice
Speaker 1: things for you. They bring you food, you want, nice
Speaker 1: pillows and nice blankets, and you're just not getting what
Speaker 1: you need, which is water. And that's sort of the
Speaker 1: situation here is like we're not addressing whatever need was there.
Speaker 1: We don't. We're not if we're if we're just using
Speaker 1: reinforcement to just shape a different behavior, we're not necessarily
Speaker 1: addressing the motivation for that behavior in the first place.
Speaker 1: Like what is the context that is creating this where
Speaker 1: we could be addressing that context instead and having this
Speaker 1: individual have like a satisfying needs are met type experience
Speaker 1: as opposed to just now they're just doing something different,
Speaker 1: even though they still might have that need and that
Speaker 1: context where the needs are not being met. So that's
Speaker 1: one way that people responded to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So like going back to kind of talking
Speaker 2: about the functional analysis part of this too, Like these
Speaker 2: tests that we're running, they don't actually reflect the natural environment,
Speaker 2: Like it's not that systematic, it's not that consistent either.
Speaker 2: So when we conduct the functional analysis, we are creating
Speaker 2: a completely fabricated context, in a fabricating environment. It's very sterile,
Speaker 2: it's very isolated. Yeah, and then providing reinforcement at a
Speaker 2: frequency that is extremely unlikely to occur in any sort
Speaker 2: of real world situation. So like in an FA, they
Speaker 2: will get a punitive reinforcer for every single incident of
Speaker 2: the target behavior or the behavior of question or the
Speaker 2: behavior that we're focused on. It's extremely unlikely that the
Speaker 2: reinforcer for that behavior is available that often in their
Speaker 2: day to day experiences at that density, at that rate,
Speaker 2: Like that that's just not it's not what really happens
Speaker 2: in the real world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just acknowledging that, Like we create this environment to
Speaker 1: test it, it is an artificial environment, I mean, at
Speaker 1: least with respect to the context in which that behavior
Speaker 1: would have otherwise occurred. And going like, using this example
Speaker 1: of the kid who bangs their head on the desk,
Speaker 1: is it the case that they hit their head once
Speaker 1: and then the teacher immediately comes over. Probably not. Probably
Speaker 1: what happens is they've learned, they do it a few times,
Speaker 1: and then that gets the teacher's attention. And then, many many,
Speaker 1: many situations, parents will accidentally shape up these challenging behaviors
Speaker 1: where the first time a kid does it, they deal
Speaker 1: with it in a way that accidentally reinforces that behavior
Speaker 1: right away. And let's just use attention as as an
Speaker 1: example one. So, like, we have a child who acts
Speaker 1: out in some way that's somewhat minor, and the parent
Speaker 1: comes over and maybe lectures them, like, hey, like, it's
Speaker 1: not okay to do this, And what the kid learns
Speaker 1: is not I get lectured. What they learn is I
Speaker 1: get attention. What form that attention takes doesn't really matter.
Speaker 1: I got attention. Right, So then they do that thing again,
Speaker 1: they act out again, and then the parents likeugh, I'm
Speaker 1: not dealing with this, I'm gonna ignore it, and so
Speaker 1: that the kid escalates it a little bit and now
Speaker 1: the parent's like, okay, now I got to deal with
Speaker 1: this right, and then they come over and they are
Speaker 1: now they're giving their attention to this thing that has
Speaker 1: now increased in magnitude. The kid learns, okay, that one
Speaker 1: little act out I had to do to get this
Speaker 1: in the first place didn't work. I need to escalate
Speaker 1: this to get it to work. So then the next
Speaker 1: time they act out and it's a little bit escalated,
Speaker 1: and the parents like, ugh, I don't want to deal
Speaker 1: with this. I'm not gonna do it. So the kid's like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're going even harder. And you can see
Speaker 1: that over a few times, this goes from something relatively
Speaker 1: minor to something extreme because every time the caregivers are
Speaker 1: the people who are the ones delivering this consequence, they're
Speaker 1: like trying to hold out a little bit longer, and
Speaker 1: the kid or the individuals figuring out, I just need
Speaker 1: to push a little bit harder, And so it shapes
Speaker 1: up from something minor to something extreme. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: take a super long time to get that. It's just
Speaker 1: every opportunity they escalate a little bit, or they do
Speaker 1: it a few extra times more, they yell and scream,
Speaker 1: and then they get what they want, and next time
Speaker 1: they yell and scream the parents like, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: wait them out, and then they yell and scream and
Speaker 1: break something, and then they get what they want, and
Speaker 1: then the parent the next time, they yell and scream
Speaker 1: the parents like, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna give in.
Speaker 1: They yell and scream and break something, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: and then they yell and scream and break something and
Speaker 1: start throwing that at other people, and now they step
Speaker 1: in to deal with it. Right, So, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: they just keep escalating and escalating, and every time, like
Speaker 1: eventually it pays off. So that's sort of a very
Speaker 1: different environment from a functional analysis, where it is like
Speaker 1: you do it once the first time, the lowest magnitude
Speaker 1: version of this, the lowest intensity version of this, and
Speaker 1: you get that outcome every single time.
Speaker 2: Just different, right, right exactly.
Speaker 1: So let's say, for example, that there's a home and
Speaker 1: an individual bites their hands so hard it bleeds when
Speaker 1: they ask for food, and then they don't get it. Right,
Speaker 1: that's normally they bite their hand and that people know, oh,
Speaker 1: they're trying to get food. We just need to give
Speaker 1: them food. Assuming this is a condition that would even
Speaker 1: be tested for in a clinical setting, which is a
Speaker 1: big if this is not a very common thing that
Speaker 1: you would test in a FA. But let's say that's
Speaker 1: the situation in their hand, the situation we're in. This
Speaker 1: individual learns that they don't have vocal communication. They but
Speaker 1: they have learned they bite their hand, it bleeds when
Speaker 1: they ask for food, and they they don't get it all. Right,
Speaker 1: in a functional analysis, assuming they're even testing for this,
Speaker 1: In that test case, they're in this austere, sterile environment.
Speaker 1: None of the people who are usually around them when
Speaker 1: they do this thing are there. The setting is different.
Speaker 1: All the other contextual features, the furniture, the lighting, the air,
Speaker 1: the temperature, the things on the table, the things in
Speaker 1: the room, those are all absent, right, And those are
Speaker 1: things that are potentially participating in the context that facilitates
Speaker 1: that behavior occurring in the first place. Right, So just
Speaker 1: to sort of say, like, we're trying to assess this
Speaker 1: behavior that occurs in one place, and we're putting them
Speaker 1: in an environment that has none of those features whatsoever
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 2: Right, So, I mean it's kind of like when you
Speaker 2: watch a show and it's ad free, Like that's kind
Speaker 2: of like what the stair, you know, the sterile environment
Speaker 2: looks like, but we know most of the time we're
Speaker 2: watching a show or something like that, there's some advertisement placements,
Speaker 2: there's there's an ad break even sometimes like right now. Okay,
Speaker 2: so we're back and we're talking about this idea that
Speaker 2: the functional analysis conditions that we run are not necessarily
Speaker 2: reflective of like what's happening in real life. Like we're
Speaker 2: getting close to like isolating variables, but it's not the
Speaker 2: rate of intensity of the reinforcement. It's not all of
Speaker 2: those things that people often think it is. So when
Speaker 2: we are testing, we're not really testing whether a given
Speaker 2: outcome is the thing that is reinforcing and maintaining the
Speaker 2: behavior for that individual when their target behavior occurs. What
Speaker 2: we are testing is can a given outcome reinforce and
Speaker 2: maintain that target behavior. It is a subtle but important
Speaker 2: difference because testing what works to reinforce behavior is basically
Speaker 2: a preference assessment, although technically in this space it is
Speaker 2: a reinforcer assessment. We're actually looking at the effect of
Speaker 2: stimulus delivery on rates of responding yes.
Speaker 1: So again this is kind of the hot take. This
Speaker 1: is like the thing about which people who feel very
Speaker 1: strongly about function analyses who have done a lot of
Speaker 1: these might disagree with us, but maybe they'll agree with
Speaker 1: this write in and let us know. But the point
Speaker 1: here is that we're creating a very artificial, novel environment
Speaker 1: to do this assessment, and then we're testing if I
Speaker 1: apply this this consequence will reinforce behavior. Now, it's reasonable
Speaker 1: to assume that if it does reinforce the behavior, then
Speaker 1: it has worked in the past to reinforce that behavior
Speaker 1: and therefore might be the thing that does reinforce the behavior.
Speaker 1: But it's also reasonable to assume that we just found
Speaker 1: a thing that can reinforce the behavior, and it might
Speaker 1: not necessarily be the thing that was reinforcing in the past.
Speaker 1: Like things can have more than one reinforcing outcome, and
Speaker 1: as we saw in the synthesized FA with some of
Speaker 1: the research has shown that you can just create new
Speaker 1: functions and apply reinforcers to a behavior and have those
Speaker 1: reinforcers work to reinforce that behavior, whether or not they
Speaker 1: were the thing that was reinforcing it when it happened
Speaker 1: that had that person come into the clinic for an
Speaker 1: assessment in the first place. So let's just go to
Speaker 1: this example of someone who bites their hands. They're like,
Speaker 1: at home, what happens is they bite their hand and
Speaker 1: then they maybe get food delivered to them that they
Speaker 1: were they were hungry and they didn't know how to
Speaker 1: ask for food. They bite their hand. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we need to bring them foods. They stop biting their hand,
Speaker 1: and that's their thinking about it. And in the clinic
Speaker 1: we see that, like when they bite their hand, we
Speaker 1: come and we bring them attention and they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I kind of like this attention thing. And then they're like, well,
Speaker 1: I just bit my hand. I got my attention, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to do that again. And they bite their
Speaker 1: hand and they get attention. They're like, oh, look, we've
Speaker 1: clearly shown that attention is why they bite their hand.
Speaker 1: That could be a thing that happens, because like we
Speaker 1: didn't test the what happens that we bring them food
Speaker 1: when they bite their hand, because why would we test
Speaker 1: that In a lot of situations, we just want to see,
Speaker 1: like if I give them some attention, then like that
Speaker 1: is currently working. That might that must be what they're
Speaker 1: the reason that they're biting their hand in their natural environment.
Speaker 1: But it actually wasn't like there was maybe another thing.
Speaker 1: Now I just made that whole situation up of the
Speaker 1: person biting their hand and getting attention and whatnot. But
Speaker 1: like the point being that, like it could be the
Speaker 1: case that we're creating those because we're just identifying can
Speaker 1: a thing reinforce a behavior? Right, not explicitly is this
Speaker 1: the thing that has reinforced the behavior? But I also
Speaker 1: want to go back to the point that in the
Speaker 1: natural environment, they're mostly not contacting reinforcement every single time
Speaker 1: the behavior occurs, right, And there are very different types
Speaker 1: of motivating operations, And they also might be getting different
Speaker 1: things out of that behavior in different circumstances. So sometimes
Speaker 1: they do this behavior and there's something they're trying to get.
Speaker 1: But they've also learned this is a strategy for the
Speaker 1: When I do this thing, I get what I need
Speaker 1: because in the context, the people who around me just
Speaker 1: figure out what that need is. So I bite my
Speaker 1: hand when I'm hungry, I bite my hand when I'm tired,
Speaker 1: I bite my hand when I want to leave. I
Speaker 1: bite my hand when I'm frustrated. I bite my hand
Speaker 1: when I want to get out of work. They like,
Speaker 1: what they've learned is this is a thing that gets
Speaker 1: me what I need, right, And like sometimes it takes
Speaker 1: me a few tries, but they'll get there eventually, they'll
Speaker 1: get me what I need, you know, most of the time.
Speaker 1: That's that's how it works. So it's just I've learned
Speaker 1: this is my strategy. So when we go to try
Speaker 1: and test that in a clinical setting, it's like something
Speaker 1: might work. Is it the thing that has worked in
Speaker 1: the past, maybe, Is it the thing that definitely reinforces
Speaker 1: this behavior all of the time. Maybe not?
Speaker 2: Maybe not right exactly. So I think it's important to
Speaker 2: kind of like think about this as we're talking about this.
Speaker 2: It's not the belittle the importance of this work. Finding
Speaker 2: a way to get more reinforcement into an individual's life
Speaker 2: while simultaneously reducing how much they harden themselves or others
Speaker 2: is like the worthy outcome, even if we choose a
Speaker 2: somewhat arbitrary reinforcer that is nevertheless highly preferred and valued
Speaker 2: by the individual. So this is still important work and
Speaker 2: we'll do great work for that person. Now. Similarly, while
Speaker 2: this is designed to be an assessment not intervention, I
Speaker 2: think that's really important to remember that this is an
Speaker 2: assessment not an intervention tool. It is worth pointing out
Speaker 2: that we cannot measure and observe behavior in a vacuum
Speaker 2: devoid of context and learning. We are always learning, including
Speaker 2: during an FA and so our learners are not going
Speaker 2: to be isolated or cushioned from reinforcement or learning history.
Speaker 2: As a result of this. The individual in the room
Speaker 2: is figuring out what we are doing and changing their
Speaker 2: behavior based on the circumstances that we've created. So we
Speaker 2: create a circumstance to figure out their behavior. They're engaging
Speaker 2: in behavior in that circumstance, and they're learning new ways
Speaker 2: to engage in behavior inside of that circumstance. So their
Speaker 2: behavior is being shaped as part of the process of
Speaker 2: being assessed, which is why it's so important to also
Speaker 2: keep this kind of as short as possible, because the
Speaker 2: longer you do it, the longer learning history shows up,
Speaker 2: and the more things show up. So it's a really
Speaker 2: complex thing that we can't just be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is for sure the result of this test, because
Speaker 2: there are so many other variables and like kind of
Speaker 2: like features of the assessment that can influence behavior beyond
Speaker 2: what we originally think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're learning, they're in an environment where they're figuring
Speaker 1: us out while we're trying to figure them out right
Speaker 1: like that, it is a two way street, So anything
Speaker 1: we do shapes their behavior in a new direction. We're
Speaker 1: not just assessing like this is what definitely is. And
Speaker 1: I have personally observed this many times when conducting functional analysies,
Speaker 1: and I always kind of wanted to actually do an
Speaker 1: explicit study about this somehow. But what I have observed
Speaker 1: is that once the individual starts to figure out that reinforcement,
Speaker 1: whatever it is they're getting as the putative reinforcer, once
Speaker 1: they figure out that is forthcoming following a specific behavior topography,
Speaker 1: like a specific way that they do this thing in
Speaker 1: specific conditions, they essentially, like you might predict that like
Speaker 1: they you see a huge increase in the behavior. But
Speaker 1: what I've actually seen over and over again is they
Speaker 1: are exerting as little effort as possible to earn that reinforcer,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. I was in an FA one time
Speaker 1: with a student who would attack others when they didn't
Speaker 1: get their way. So essentially it was like what we
Speaker 1: sort of figured out for this individual was their requests
Speaker 1: being honored in a specific way was kind of the
Speaker 1: function here, And so it was when they didn't get
Speaker 1: their way, they would attack other staff, and once they
Speaker 1: figure it out, they could get their way by attacking staff.
Speaker 1: Their attacks that were things like grabbing, scratching, spitting, kicking,
Speaker 1: throwing objects that they were using. They would do that
Speaker 1: but using barely any strength at all. Eventually it went
Speaker 1: from them like full blown attack to like they would
Speaker 1: come over and they would just like slap you on
Speaker 1: the wrist or the knee or the shoulder or something
Speaker 1: whatever is close by. They just kind of reach over
Speaker 1: and just do like a tap, and that full blown
Speaker 1: attack in which someone could have and in some cases
Speaker 1: even were actually injured, turned into something with a slightly
Speaker 1: less gusto than a half hearted high five, just enough
Speaker 1: to earn that reinforcer, but taking as little effort as
Speaker 1: possible to exert. So the magnitude decreased significantly because they
Speaker 1: learned that they just didn't need to work that hard
Speaker 1: to get the thing that they wanted. It wasn't that
Speaker 1: they were malicious. They weren't attacking people because they wanted
Speaker 1: to see harm come to people. They just didn't know
Speaker 1: how to get what they wanted in that situation right.
Speaker 1: And what they learned was like I attack someone, I
Speaker 1: get what I want. I attack someone, I get what
Speaker 1: I want. I start to attack someone, I get what
Speaker 1: I want. So though, like they're not even escalated at
Speaker 1: this point, they're like, we create the evocative situation. They
Speaker 1: reach over and they're like sort of light tap on
Speaker 1: the shoulder and they don't get it, and they're like,
Speaker 1: all right, a little bit harder than that. And then
Speaker 1: they get it and they're like, okay, that counts now
Speaker 1: as aggression. Now, the rates of aggression that we're measuring,
Speaker 1: we basically just measured yes it did happen or no
Speaker 1: it didn't. So like when we're counting as we're observing
Speaker 1: this to take data and like actually develop data trends,
Speaker 1: is did the behavior happen or did it not happen?
Speaker 1: And so the rates look about the same, but the
Speaker 1: magnitude is decreased from like dangerous to barely counts as
Speaker 1: an instance of the behavior occurring right right right, And
Speaker 1: I've observed those multiple times with multiple different individuals across
Speaker 1: variety of circumstances and behaviors. And so in a sense,
Speaker 1: the assessment itself became a kind of intervention, and there
Speaker 1: is an actual strategy that some people in clinical settings
Speaker 1: have used where you do explicitly put a challenging behavior
Speaker 1: on it what's called an f R one schedule, meaning
Speaker 1: you reinforce every single instance of that behavior. Because we
Speaker 1: also know from schedules of reinforcement that a behavior that
Speaker 1: was reinforced every time goes away more quickly when reinforcement
Speaker 1: goes away, So you can figure out that, like in
Speaker 1: the instance we're describing before of that kid who like
Speaker 1: they escalate and escalate and escalate, they'll often like figure
Speaker 1: out they have to do it a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: times to get the thing that they want to do
Speaker 1: it four or five six times. If you stop providing reinforcement,
Speaker 1: then like they're four or five six times, they're not
Speaker 1: going to do it another four five six times, and
Speaker 1: then another four five six times, and another until they're
Speaker 1: doing it like fifty times, right, and it's still not coming.
Speaker 1: Then it starts to taper off. But if you if
Speaker 1: you are reinforcing every single instance of that challenging behavior,
Speaker 1: then they do it and it doesn't happen. They're like,
Speaker 1: that's weird, I'm used to getting reinforcement. Try it again,
Speaker 1: They're like, hold on the reinforcements still not happen. They
Speaker 1: try a third time, They're like, okay, what are we
Speaker 1: doing here? And then like because the reinforcement tapers off
Speaker 1: like it was, it was so dense. Going from every
Speaker 1: single time to zero times means that it sometimes is
Speaker 1: faster to see that de escalate to nothing. And so
Speaker 1: that is an explicit strategy that some people have used.
Speaker 1: So in a functional analysis, if you're reinforcing every single
Speaker 1: instance that happens, you kind of accidentally intervened, right, because
Speaker 1: like it's just it's now on a different schedule than
Speaker 1: it's ever been on, and it's also not requiring the
Speaker 1: same amount of effort to get them there. So they
Speaker 1: just sort of learn the like, all right, it happens
Speaker 1: like I ask a little bit like that one little
Speaker 1: tap wasn't quite enough. I tap a little bit harder.
Speaker 1: That's still not doing. To tap a little bit harder,
Speaker 1: and they're like, go even to ask it a little
Speaker 1: bit further, Like, Wow, this just isn't working. I guess
Speaker 1: I give up. You know, I have seen that sort
Speaker 1: of thing happen. So while we treat this as an
Speaker 1: assessment tool, which is what is designed to be, and
Speaker 1: I think in most circumstances where learning valuable information that
Speaker 1: translates directly into clinical outcomes. Philosophically speaking, understanding that what
Speaker 1: we're kind of just doing is a reinforcer assessment, and
Speaker 1: that they're learning from us as much as we're learning
Speaker 1: from them. Yeah, in those situations, if not more, And
Speaker 1: it does in fact shape their behavior in a specific
Speaker 1: direction that is not necessarily isolating or understanding variables. It
Speaker 1: is creating a new learning history.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you nailed it.
Speaker 1: Okay, those are sort of the hot takes here.
Speaker 2: I think whenever we are assessing human behavior, I think
Speaker 2: gets complex and I think that there are like ripple
Speaker 2: effects and outcomes that we don't necessarily always pay attention
Speaker 2: to when the goal of the assessment or the goal
Speaker 2: of whatever we're doing is is very clear, right, So, like,
Speaker 2: if the goal is to figure out the function of behavior,
Speaker 2: we might not think about those kind of like tertiary
Speaker 2: benefits or those outcomes that actually have a greater effect
Speaker 2: than we realize, Like you just mentioned, like increasing the
Speaker 2: density of a schedule of reinforcement ultimately reduces the rescis
Speaker 2: spont's effort or the intensity of the response that we're
Speaker 2: concerned about right, like all of those things. That's not
Speaker 2: a side effect that we often talk about inside of
Speaker 2: an assessment, but that is an effect that can happen.
Speaker 2: I think that's worth kind of like understanding. Is like
Speaker 2: when people talk about functional analyzes, they can't just be like,
Speaker 2: this is what a functional analysis is. Like, it's like,
Speaker 2: this is what it is on the surface, but ultimately
Speaker 2: there are all these little effects that you have to
Speaker 2: pay attention to and be mindful of and be aware of,
Speaker 2: and which is why competency is so important when you
Speaker 2: do these things.
Speaker 1: True, very true. Okay, there is a we've referenced this
Speaker 1: in the last episode and in this one. I think
Speaker 1: I forget which one's exactly in this whole series that
Speaker 1: we've been doing. But there's a twenty twelve article by
Speaker 1: Greg Hanley in Behavior Analysis and Practice and which he
Speaker 1: digs a lot into like myths and lore about functional analyzes.
Speaker 1: I know it's a few years you know, it's over
Speaker 1: a decade old at this point, but I think it
Speaker 1: makes a lot of arguments that people have continue to
Speaker 1: use and describe and talk about. So if you have
Speaker 1: other concerns or questions or inquiries, that is a good one.
Speaker 1: It's a good place to start at least, and then
Speaker 1: you can sort of see what else has cited that
Speaker 1: set that was published and sort of follow, you know,
Speaker 1: at least a couple of articles down and see where
Speaker 1: that discussion has evolved. But I do think it's a
Speaker 1: very commonly cited article still in terms of those types
Speaker 1: of discussions, and has more to say. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that more or less wraps up what we have
Speaker 1: to say about functional analyses. Finally, for episodes, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we did a month of fas not intentional, but it's
Speaker 1: where we ended up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good though, I mean I think we gave
Speaker 2: it the space it deserved.
Speaker 1: Yeah, perfect, all right, good, So it was like the
Speaker 1: month of August was FA month or something. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what it is, all right. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: tell us your thoughts on functional analyzes or anything that
Speaker 1: we've mentioned in here, we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can email us directly at info at wwdwwdpodcast dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can reach us on the social media platforms,
Speaker 1: and I do look forward to hearing from you. If
Speaker 1: you're joining us for the first time, you may not know,
Speaker 1: but that at the end of our full length discussions,
Speaker 1: we do some recommendations. I think it's very fun stick
Speaker 1: around for that because it is, like I said, it's
Speaker 1: just fun. It's just an enjoyable thing. And plus we
Speaker 1: only have like one more set of ads to get
Speaker 1: through and then we get to those parts, so we'll
Speaker 1: see inside of these ads. Bye, Okay, we're back. We're
Speaker 1: getting into the credits and then our recommendations. As I said,
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Speaker 1: do that, you will get early episodes, add free episodes,
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Speaker 2: Ah bellissimo.
Speaker 1: That was Shane blowing kisses, So thank you all.
Speaker 2: This So it was I love you guys. You guys
Speaker 2: are great And.
Speaker 1: If you are not one of those Patreon supporters, then
Speaker 1: you two can have kisses blown at you by Shane
Speaker 1: by joining us on Patreon, so you can do that there.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: I think those all the ways I could talked about
Speaker 1: for you supporting us. Could tell a friend subscribe for
Speaker 1: them on their device. That's also very nice of you.
Speaker 1: I'd also need to shout out my team and people,
Speaker 1: because it takes a village to make a podcast, a
Speaker 1: village of podcasters, and that's what I have here. So
Speaker 1: thank you so much to the people who make this happen,
Speaker 1: writing and fact checking from Shane and myself. Thank you
Speaker 1: for recording with me today.
Speaker 2: Shane, Hey, thank you for a month of a phase.
Speaker 1: Hey, you very welcome. Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson.
Speaker 1: And our extraordinary, wonderful and credible, remarkable, delectable, delightful and
Speaker 1: incredible God Emperor producer person is Justin Who's the best?
Speaker 2: So handsome?
Speaker 1: Try to come up with a bunch of adjectives. There,
Speaker 1: it worked, it did, and I think that is what
Speaker 1: we have to say about that. Before we turn to
Speaker 1: our recommendations. Thank you all for listening. I guess you, audience,
Speaker 1: you also deserve a big shout out and thanks because
Speaker 1: you're here. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, yeah, you're the best.
Speaker 1: All right, Ready, recommend some things or do you have
Speaker 1: anything I forgot so you like to add?
Speaker 2: No, I think that covers it.
Speaker 1: Recommendations.
Speaker 2: All right, So I'm gonna recommend a movie that I
Speaker 2: got to see. I did a double feature where I
Speaker 2: saw Spider Man Brandy Day in the morning, and then
Speaker 2: I went and saw this movie in the afternoon Lovely
Speaker 2: and it was great. And so I'm recommending The Odyssey
Speaker 2: by Christopher Nolan. Here's the thing. Christopher Nolan is just
Speaker 2: a like he's just got such an eye for film,
Speaker 2: and I think that, like it's every movie that he's
Speaker 2: ever shot is just shot so well, and it's so
Speaker 2: interesting and just so cool. And also I just love
Speaker 2: mythology and I love the story of the Odyssey in general,
Speaker 2: and I think put those two things together and then
Speaker 2: you get this really amazing thing. One of the things
Speaker 2: I really love about Christopher Nolan is that he really
Speaker 2: takes time to try to do practical effects for everything
Speaker 2: and so and you can see that really clearly in
Speaker 2: this movie. It is like there's so many practical effects
Speaker 2: for things that you don't think are practical effects. The giant,
Speaker 2: the Cyclops is a practical effect. It's just so cool
Speaker 2: and so great. And just I mean, Matt Damon is
Speaker 2: unreal in this movie. So I think, I mean, everybody
Speaker 2: is fantastic in it, but I think Matt Damon just
Speaker 2: does a killer job of being Odysseus and the gravity
Speaker 2: and the hubris that goes along with him, you know,
Speaker 2: and I think, ah, just so good. So I recommend
Speaker 2: everybody to go see this, like, and I recommend seeing
Speaker 2: it in a theater because, like, I think there's something
Speaker 2: really impactful about seeing it on a big screen. I
Speaker 2: also recommend bringing earplugs, maybe because like the loud parts
Speaker 2: are very loud. Fair, and maybe that was just the
Speaker 2: theater I was in, but the loud parts were maybe
Speaker 2: the loudest I've ever had in a movie where I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is maybe a lot, okay, but
Speaker 2: it was great. It was a great movie.
Speaker 1: I second that I loved this. I thought Matt Damon
Speaker 1: was outstanding, And yeah, I think he impressively really sank
Speaker 1: into that role and the way that made you feel
Speaker 1: like he just is this character. Yeah, Like I stopped
Speaker 1: seeing Matt Damon very quickly and just saw Odysseus.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just as you said, it's exactly they're the hubris,
Speaker 1: but also the like the values, the drive, like it
Speaker 1: just was all there and communicated perfectly throughout. Like Matt
Speaker 1: Damon was just a true pro at the Yeah. So
Speaker 1: great casting on that I'm recommending. It's my try to
Speaker 1: recommend things. I'm recommending a This is a game. I
Speaker 1: guess you'd call it a board game. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: a board. It is a card game. So there's a
Speaker 1: game I have mentioned before. It's called Wingspan, also a
Speaker 1: card game, but also has boards. And Wingspan is not
Speaker 1: a very complicated game. But for people who are not
Speaker 1: used to games that are more interesting than like Clue
Speaker 1: and Monopoly, then they see this and their minds are
Speaker 1: blown all the way open, sure when they see Wingspan,
Speaker 1: because it does have more than one rule and it
Speaker 1: is good, and they're not used to good. They're just
Speaker 1: used to Monopoly, sure, and so they are confused. But
Speaker 1: nevertheless it's actually it's a very easy game and it's
Speaker 1: one of my favorites and it's fantastic. Well, they came
Speaker 1: out with a new version of this called Wingspan Pocket,
Speaker 1: which is very small. It does not fit in your pocket,
Speaker 1: but it is very small and it's just a bunch
Speaker 1: of cards and it is a very very streamlined version
Speaker 1: of Wingspan that is definitely different enough to be its
Speaker 1: own game. You can play in like thirty minutes. It
Speaker 1: goes up to five people. It works fine at two people.
Speaker 1: I have played it a handful of times now and
Speaker 1: I have very, very much enjoyed this. So for people
Speaker 1: who want who are looking for a game that is
Speaker 1: really fun and very easy to play, it doesn't take
Speaker 1: very long. Wingspan Pocket is so perfect for this. This
Speaker 1: is very accessible to people, even if they are not
Speaker 1: really familiar with like the world of board games. I
Speaker 1: think most people who can read and understand rules can
Speaker 1: sit down and learn this game with very little effort needed.
Speaker 1: The rules are very well written, the components are really nice,
Speaker 1: the box is pretty small, and like I said, you
Speaker 1: can do this in like thirty minutes so and up
Speaker 1: to five players.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. So that's Wingspan Pockets, the card Game,
Speaker 1: and The Odyssey, the new movie from Christopher Nolan. I
Speaker 1: think that's what we have to say about functional analyses.
Speaker 1: I think we can close the book on this topic
Speaker 1: for now. For now, there's nothing left to learn. You've
Speaker 1: learned it all. Yeah, is there anything you'd like that
Speaker 1: or anything I forgot before was here? Goodbyes?
Speaker 2: No, I think we're good.
Speaker 1: All right, happy functional analyzing. Thank you all for listening
Speaker 1: to this. Is Abraham and it's Shane. We're out. So yep,
Speaker 1: you've been listening to Why We Do What We Do.
Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
Speaker 2: going to WWD WWD.
Speaker 1: Podcast dot com.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome day.