Functional Assessment and Treatment of Migraine Reports and School Absences in an Adolescent with Asperger's Disorder

Psychological interventions for migraines typically include biofeedback training, stress-management training, or relaxation training and are implemented without consideration of environmental variables that might maintain migraines or complaints of migraines. An adolescent with daily reports of migraines that negatively impacted school attendance participated in therapy with his parents. A functional assessment of migraine complaints was conducted with the participant and his mother. After developing a hypothesis that the function of migraine complaints was escape from tasks and school, differential reinforcement and escape extinction were implemented. Results indicate that migraine reports can be successfully treated using a function-based intervention even when standard psychological interventions were ineffective, illustrating the importance of considering the function of a problem rather than treating based upon the topography.