The text describes the selfinjurious behavior SIB as occurring frequently 16 34 26 times in 1 hour but with a very short duration 1 to 2 seconds average 12 seconds When the primary goal is to reduce a behavior that is discrete repetitive and occurs many times within an observation period rate frequency per unit of time is typically the most sensitive and appropriate measure By targeting rate Jonah can directly measure and aim to decrease how often the behavior occurs within a specific timeframe Latency measures the time from the onset of a stimulus to the initiation of a response while useful in some contexts its not the primary concern here given the high frequency and lack of a clear consistent discriminative stimulus SD for each SIB instance Magnitude measures the intensity of the behavior while important for understanding the severity of SIB it doesnt directly address the occurrence of the behavior for reduction purposes We want to reduce how often it happens Duration measures the total time a behavior occurs since each instance of SIB is already very brief 12 seconds further reducing the duration of individual responses is less impactful than reducing the number of times the behavior occurs The problem explicitly states that the durations are already very low suggesting frequency and thus rate is the more salient problem to address for overall reduction