Overview
The Motivation Assessment Scale (MAS; Durand & Crimmins, 1988, 1992; Haim, 2002) is a rating scale designed to help identify the motivation behind a target problem behavior in individuals with developmental disabilities through informant responses. A revised version (Durand, 2002) has additional items, provides rater instructions, and separates “escape” into “escape demands” and “escape attention”. This revision consists of 51 items presented in a checklist/questionnaire format, which comprise five subscales that each represent a possible function of behavior: sensory, escape demands, escape attention, attention, and tangible. MAS items describe specific situations, and the respondent rates how likely the target behavior is to occur on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from “0 = never” to “6 = always”. Item scores are summed within each subscale/function, and mean ratings are then calculated for the respective subscales. High scores indicate that those functions may maintain problem behavior (though instrument developers do not specify what constitutes a high score).
Summary
Age: N/A
Time to Administer: 10-15 minutes
Method of Administration: 51-item checklist/questionnaire;. Each question has six response options (0 = never, 1 = almost never, 2 = seldom, 3 = half the time, 4 = usually, 5 = almost always, and 6 = always).
Results in hypothesis regarding behavior
Subscales: Sensory; Escape Demands; Escape Attention; Attention; Tangible
Autism Related Research
Joosten et al. (2009)
Age Range: 5-18 years
Sample Size: 74
Topics Addressed:
Examine intrinsic and extrinsic motivators for stereotypical and repetitive behaviors in children with ASD + ID vs. those with ID only
Outcome:Joosten et al. (2009)
Rasch analysis of data revealed that the items formed two unidimensional scales. Anxiety was a more likely intrinsic motivator than sensory seeking for children with dual diagnoses; the reverse was true for children with ID only. Escape and gaining a tangible object were the most common extrinsic motivators for those with dual diagnoses and attention and escape for children with ID.
Joosten & Bundy (2008)
Age Range: 5-18 years
Sample Size: 67
Topics Addressed:
Examine construct validity of the MAS among children with ASD + ID vs. those with ID only
Outcome:Joosten & Bundy (2008)
Using both Rasch and principal component analysis results failed to support the proposed unidimensional construct or the original 4-factor structure. While some motivators appear to form a unidimensional construct, sensory stimulation may represent a different construct. Children with intellectual disability were more apt to be motivated by desire to gain a tangible item or attention. Children with the dual diagnoses were more apt to have sensory stimulation or escape from task demand as a motivator for stereotypic and repetitive behavior.
Paclawskyj et al. (2001)
Age Range: Ages were not reported in the study.
Sample Size: 13
Topics Addressed:
Convergent validity of QABF and Motivation Assessment Scale (MAS) for use with persons with developmental disabilities, and correlation with functional analysis sessions
Outcome:Paclawskyj et al. (2001)
The two checklists were more highly correlated with each other than with results from the analogue sessions, and the QABF was more highly correlated with analogue sessions than the MAS. Using analogue sessions, the experimenters failed to ascertain behavioral function for a number of subjects because the behavior problems in question were low frequency/high intensity and failed to appear during the course of the analysis, pointing out a limitation of this technology.
Conclusion: These findings, taken together with recent research outlining the psychometric properties of the QABF, seem to support the use of the QABF in a hierarchical model of functional analysis.