Unmasking social functions: Outcomes from a retrospective consecutive case series of 19 applications

Prior research has identified the potential dangers associated with challenging behavior, specifically self‐injurious behavior, and has thus highlighted the need to employ protective procedures to ensure the safety of individuals with self‐injurious behavior. Although protective procedures can sometimes suppress responding, some small‐ n studies suggest they can also elucidate or unmask social functions when the initial functional analysis indicates that challenging behavior is only automatically maintained. However, large‐scale studies of functional analysis outcomes indicate that co‐occurring automatically and socially maintained challenging behavior is relatively uncommon. We conducted a retrospective consecutive case series study to describe a set of procedures to unmask social functions when the initial functional analysis indicated an automatic function. Results suggest that protective procedures unmasked social functions in 26.32% of cases.