Research Trends in Descriptive Analysis (Report‪)‬

Descriptive analysis involves the direct observation of target behavior in natural (or naturalistic) contexts to gather information on contiguous and potentially relevant environmental events, in the absence of experimental manipulation. That is, descriptive analyses identify events that are correlated with the occurrence of some target response. Descriptive analysis is commonly used as a part of a comprehensive functional assessment of problem behavior, prior to conducting an experimental functional analysis. Several advantages of descriptive analysis have been noted in the literature. First, because descriptive analyses involve direct observation of behavior in the natural environment, they provide a means to gather baseline rates of problem behavior. These rates may be useful to determine treatment efficacy once an intervention is developed and implemented. Second, the direct observation aspect of descriptive analyses may be useful in developing operational definitions of behavior, rather than relying on verbal report of caregivers. Third, descriptive analyses may be helpful in identifying particular antecedents or consequences to incorporate into functional analyses. For example, certain functional analysis conditions may be added or omitted based on the common antecedent and consequent conditions observed in the natural environment. Fourth, it has been argued that descriptive analysis may be used as an assessment procedure when functional analyses are not possible due to the nature of the target behavior (e.g., extremely low rate or dangerous problem behavior). However, the use of descriptive analysis as a sole means of ascribing function to behavior is not recommended. This is because the complexity of the natural environment makes it difficult to determine which events are functionally related to the target behavior. Other potential negative aspects of using descriptive analysis to determine the function of the behavior have also been noted including the amount of time and complex data analysis necessary for a complete assessment, the correlational nature of the data, and poor validity outcomes reported in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of a variety of research areas in descriptive analysis, including suggestions of when descriptive analyses can and should be used. In addition, possible future areas of research using descriptive analysis will be discussed.