Based on Michael J.’s establishing operations (EO) account, the article firstly examined how the two basic functions of EO, which were changing strengths of reinforcers or punishers and changing frequency of behaviours leading to these reinforcers or punishers, can be used to explain the evocation and maintenance of problem behaviours with details on unconditioning establishing operations (UEO) which is more related to physical and biological reinforcers and three types of conditioned establishing operations (CEO) including surrogate, reflexive and transitive CEOs which are more related to environmental and other factors instead of physical or biological factors.
The author then discussed how problem behaviour is maintained by individuals to adapt to environment where there are deprivation of attention and stimulation and difficult to comply task demands, following by suggesting the advantages of including identification and modification of EOs in functional analysis to have improve intervention results. Some questions arose in treatments are also discussed in relation of EO, for example the extinction burst, behavioural momentum, and functional communication training (FCT) followed by suggestions for development of treatments by aiming at EOs by means of modifying EOs, extinguishing CEOs, and modifying the responses evoked by EOs.
The article finished with a discussion on preventing problem behaviour by manipulating resources within the immediate environment where at risk individuals whom were identified by biological and genetic screenings reside at.