Data must be ethical and valid when representing the target bx in a visual analysis.
A BCBA should never choose a visual analysis that will skew the data or give the wrong impression of the results.
Plotting data on a cumulative record is not the same as plotting data on a scatter plot, they show different types of data. Cumulative records are used to display the #accumulation of a permanent product (effects of the IV) associated with a response or the total number of #accumulating responses. A scatter plot is used for recording the extent to which a target behavior occurs more often at particular times than others, it tells us when the bx occurred at a certain point in time.
line graph can be used to scale data in the same dimension.
A scatter plot is also known as a pattern analysis for recording the extent to which a target behavior occurs more often at particular times than others, it tells us when the bx occurred at a certain point in time
THe change of the rate of a response over time is displayed on a standard celeration chart.
Cumulative records are used to display the #accumulation of the effects of the IV associated with a response or the toal number of #accumulating responses. When implementing a self-management intervention, the cumulative record is best to use to track the overall total instances of the target bx to analyze the change in the rate of responding.
BCBA should use a bar graph to display data that are UNRELATED to each other(i.e. different categories of data). Bar graphs do NOT display data trends or variability in data, they only display the levels of data.
Procedural integrity is important to treatment because it helps to determine that the services that are being provided are good quality services.(procedural fidelity, treatment fidelity, program integrity, fidelity of implementation, treatment integrity)
Procedural integrity is the extent to which the treatment plan is implemented as it was written.
Procedural integrity is important not only for the client but for the technician and the plan as a whole. It not only provides information that the treatment plan is a good quality service but it also provides feedback and keeps the client and staff motivated and reinforced. When techinician is adding additional step in implements and it decreases client's behavior, BCBA can collect data on the procedure with the additional step and modify the plan if the step is consistent with the client's program goals.
The main goal of procedural integrity is to monitor the staff that is implementing the treatment plan in accordance to haw it was written. The BCBA can also measure each procedure for procedural integrity.
BCBA must ensure that the staff is properly trained on all portions of the treatment plan. In order to train the staff properly the BCBA uses competency-based and performance-based strategies.
BCBAs should always reinforce not only client with immediacy but the staff as well. If the staff was provided with delayed reinforcement it could affect theri performance level which in turn can affect the successfulness of the client.
Staff that implements the plan play an important role in the success of the client. The staff's skill level must be securely in place. Providing training and immediate feedback alsp is key in the successfulness of the client and staff. Staff sucess=client success.
There are 4 ways to create treatment integrity which include: specify, train, monitor, and reinforce.
Per BACB ethical code, BCBAs must always include fade out plan when implementing punishement procedures.
Matching Law is to Concurrent Schedules of reinforcement as Behavioral Contrast is to multiple schedules of reinforcement.
Behavioral contrast is observed when the schedule of reinforcement has been increased in one situation while remaining constant in the other. It occurs when the response rate changes inversely in an unaltered setting or component due to a change in a multiple schedule in another component/setting.
As long as intervention conditions are held constant in all settings, across people, and across time-by punishing all instances of undesirable behavior, behavioral contrast effects will be minimized or prevented.
If behavior has been maintained in 2(or more) contexts, and a procedure that decreases behavior is introduced into one of these contexts, the behavior may increase in the other, without any other change in contingencies. This increase is called positive behavioral contrast.
Negative behavioral contrast results when behavior increases in one schedule causes a decrease in the other.
Decreased effectiveness of a reinforcer due to satiation is not an unwanted effect of extinction - it is a side effect of the lack or variation of reinforcers. Undesirable emotional responses, spontaneous recovery, extinction burst, aggression, resistance to extinction, resurgence, discriminated extinction and or behavioral contrast ( the increase of the behavior on a setting without extinction impemented) are all common unwanted effects of extinction that should be consedered when programming extinction procedures.
to minimize this 'Decreased effectiveness of a reinforcer due to satiation', we want to make sure that we use multiple, varied reinforcers and cycle through the different reinforcers to prevent satiation.
Before using punishement as part of a treatment package, a BCBA must obtain written consent from the client, parents, or legal advocate
Unwanted effects of negative reinforcement are same as the unwanted effects of punishment. Negative reinforcment involoves the presence of an aversive stimulus; this presence may have similar effects of punishement procedures
Possible unwanted effects of punishment include escape and avoidance behaviors, behavioral contrast, observed learning, overuse of punishement prcedures, undesirable emotional responses and aggression.
Response cost involves removing reinforcement upon the occurrence of an undesirable behavior. When implementing a response cost, the removal of a positive reinforcer may result in aggressive behaviors or one may inadvertently provide desired attention for the punished bx and unintentionally serve as a reinforcing consequence to the problem bx. Produce avoidance responses, effect collateral reductions of appropriate behaviors, increase student aggressiveness.
When programming reinforcers, we want to make sure that we fade out the contrived reinforcers to reinforcers that are naturally present in the environment to promote generalization and maintain the behavior once the interventions have been faded out.
If a successful reinforcement procedure is terminated, it is very likely that the target bx may stop as well. This highlights the importance of programming fading procedures and natural reinforcers.
Possible unwanted effect of reinforcement:fixation on highly preferred reinforcer causing distraction or engagement in maladaptive behavior, Target behavior may not generalized if it is only reinfored in specific settings, during certain times, or by certain people, engagement in maladaptive behavior due to difficulty relinquishing or transitioning back from reinforcing activity, using reinforcement in a specific environment or under certain conditions does not guarantee generalization.
unwanted effect of extinction: Discriminated extinction or behavior constrast - the treatment is only effective in the presence of an SD(e.g. the therapist implementing then extinction procedure), undesirable emotional responses, spontaneous recovery, exinction burst, aggression, resistance to extinction, resurgence, and or behavioral contrast(the increase of the behavior in a setting without extinction implemented) are all common unwanted effects of extinction that should be considered when programming extinction procedures.
When using punishment, a negative side effect can occur where the decrease of one problem bx by punishment can lead to a decrease in other desirable bx. This is most commonly due to unintentionally punishing other bx.
If behavior has been maintained in 2(or more) contexts, and a procedure that decreases behavior is intorduced into one of these contexts, the behavior may increase in the other, without any other change in contingencies. THis increase is called positive behavioral contrast.
Spontaneous recovery occurs during the implementation of extinction procedures, it involves the short-lived and limted reemergence of the previouly reinforced problem bx after it has been extinguished even though it no longer produces reinforcemnet. This is a temporary effect.
Habituation involves a decrease in responsiveness to repeated presentations of a stimulus. It typically shows a reduction of respondent bx as a function of repeated presentation of the aversive stimulus over a short span of time. Every time jacob curses her sister sprays a perfume that jacob finds extremely aversive. Initially this is working and he begins to decrease his cursing behavior. However, after some time the smell doesn't bother him anymore and his cursing behavior increases again. Jacob is no longer responding to the aversive stimulus of the perfume because it has been presented repeatedly over a short time span-he has gotten used to the smell(habituated)
Bribery occurs when a preferred item is presented before the desired behavior or promised in response to an undesired behavior. Reinforcement is presented after the desired behavior occurs.
Resurgence is the reappearance of a previously reinforced behavior as a result of putting another behavior being put on extinction.
In order for time-out to be effective, the time-in environment must be reinforcing to the individual.
Variable ratio schedules of reinforcement is most resistant to extinction, it is the strongest schedule of reinforcement.
The consequence of behavior should always occur immediately after behavior occurs to establish a relation/contingency. They should have close temporal continguity, which means proximity in time-the events should occur close together in time.
BCBA cannot decrease the maladaptive bx(punishment) without increasing an alternative replacement behavior(reinforcement). There should always be a functionally equivalent alternative bx to replace the problem bx, so that the reduction of one bx is paired with the reinforcement of another.
BCBA should take into account the bx currently within the client's repertoire that have functional equivalence with the target problem bx to serve as replacements. Functionally equivalent alternative bx that the client already know how to demostrate provide quicker access to reinforcement and reduction of the problem bx and less time spent teaching. The alternative bx does not need to be reinforcing to stakeholders.
Functional equivalence is when different forms of behavior produce the same consequences or result in access to the same reinforcement
Functional equivalence has the AKA of functionally equivalent behaviors.
A good operational difinition shows the 3 defining criteria, it must be #clear, #complete, and #objective. They allow you to convey either what the behavior looks like (topography, #objective) or what function the behavior serves while providing sufficient detail (examples and non-examples) to be clear and complete
BCBAs should consider legal, funding, and resource constraints when selecting an intervention; however, documentation should not affect BCBAs this decision process. In order for the intervention to be successful.
Time is a valuable resource when conducting assessments, BCBAs need to have adequate time to properly assess all of the client's necessary skills in order to inform the intervention planning process. When time is scarce, this limits(constrains) the ability to gather information during the assessment period.
Creating and confirming a task analysis is the first step when introducing a chaining procedure intervention. After creating the analysis, an assessment will be conducted to determine what steps can be probed as known. Finally the method of chaining will then be determined based off the learners assessment.
Behavior analysts manipulate environmental components that may hinder a client's progress or that affect ABA service delivery. The BCBA should take all necessary and feasible measures to provie adequate service delivery within their available means. The client's have a right to effective treatment and BCBAs must review and consider the effects of any factors that may impact the inverventions used.
BCBAs should ALWAYS consider the environment as a variable that could affect behavior during the ecological assessment-this is what it is all about! Manipulating environmental variables to aid behavior change is what we do!
BCBA should align goals to client's NATURAL environment when intervening in their supporting environment. There should be ample availability of reinforcement of the clients bx that match naturally occurring sources of reinforcement. This allows for natural learning relevant to the client's typical interactions and helps generalize across conditions.
The client's supporting environment MUST have ample availability of reinforcement opportunities for the clients bx when considering interventions to implement.
Whenever you're observing a client in their environment (you're directly present) there is always potential for reactivity by the client. Reactivity refers to the effects of an observer influencing the behavior being assessed. It usually occurs when the client is aware of the BCBA's presence and purpose-which in turn influences their behavior. For example, Linda is Danny's BCBA, she is observing an RBT ask Danny to tact certain mastered stimuli from a set of cards. Danny is aware that Linda is in the room and watching him do the activity, when the RBT asks him to tact one of his known SDs, he answers incorrectly even though he has achived 100% success with tacting the item in the past. He is reacting to the presende of Linda and his bx is altered.
In order for the intervention to be successful the caretakers must be supportive of the intervention.
Baseline data refers to the data collection before the IV or intervention is implemented. If we were taking baseline data on a task analysis we would be assessing the learners known skills vs teaching the task analysis.
the client is first and foremost priority when determining procedures and interventions utilized to improve socially significant behavior.
Time and cost is not an advantage of using an ecological assessment. Ecological assessements gather information about the environment that the client interacts with and provides an abundance of that information to allow the BCBA to see what factors influence the client's behavior. descriptive data, lots of information
The BCBA should be taking into consideration that the caretaker can implement the plan. If they can not or will not aid in implementation then it probabaly will not get implemented. Because the ultimate goal of if an intervention is for the generalization and maintenance of the skill in the learner's natural environment, it is imperative to consider the caretaker having the ability to implement the plan.
Envrionmental factors are any stimulus, variable or aspect within the envrioment that can affect change within that envrionment and behaviors.
A definition of an environmental variable should be clear, complete and objective. This allows for replication of results, unambiguous evaluation and interpretation.
BCBAs should consider the client's current repertoire/skill level and what functional skills are relevant to effectively interact with their environment
Environment is an AKA for ecology. It is the environments that an individual contacts in their daily life.
The behavioral environment includes the stimulus changes through all the stimuli and behaviors of others that affect the individual - it is the setting and conditions which surround the individual #environment
collaboration between caretakers and other stakeholders should always occur for the success of the client.
When creating a task analysis, the task must be broken down appropriately so all steps to the terminal behavior will be taught. Practitioners should perform the task themselves when creating the analysis to verify all steps are included when teaching the behavior.
It's essenstial to continue to create opportunities to use skills that have been mastered after the skill is acquired. Once a client learns how to complete a skill successfully, it must be programmed for maintenance in the natural envrionment to promote generalization of the skill in novel and natural conditions. THis is important for mastering the skill and for its perseverance through time, otherwise the client will lose the skills necessary for mastery.
As a BCBA, your goal should be for your client to not need your services. THe client's have a right to effective treatment and BCBAs must review and consider the effects of any factors that may impact the interventions used. A BCBA should make changes to the environment to lessen the need for ABA services.
BCBAs make recommendations for interventions regarding target behaviors after conducting FBAs that aim to either increase, decrease, establish, and maintain the target behaviors.
Interventions should always provide a functionally equivalent replacement behavior to the targeted behavior.
Once a client learns how to complete a skill successfully/masters a skill, it must be programmed for maintenance in the natural environment to promote generalization fo the skill in novel and natural conditions. THis is important for mastering the skill and for its perseverance through time
Medical onsiderations should always be the first information collected when conducting an intake on a new client. If there is ever an indication that a medical condition could be linked to a beahvior, BCBAs should recommend to the client's caregivers to get the client medically evaluated for underlying medical problems.
Reinforcement procedures should always be utilized first before punishment is deemed necessary.
Incorporating reinforcement for replacement behaviors is always the most effective use of extinction procedure.
Interventions should always be the least intrusive and become more intrusive if deemed necessary.
Important consideration when using a combination of punishment and reinforcement procesures: Punishment often leads to undesirable emotional responses and a systematic plan for fading should always be considered from the onset of planning for intervention. Further, reinforcement procedures should always be implemented simultaneously with punishment procedures and should include the use of high-quality reinforcers and dense schedules of reinforcment for effective intervention.
Important consideration when using a combination of extinction and reinforcement procesures: Extinction procedures initially result in an increase in behaviors, which may be a safety concern. Extinction bursts, reinforcement history and behavior-maintaining schedules of reinforcement are all majot considerations that can affect the success of extinction and reinforcement procedures.
When considering interventions, BCBAs should always make sure to provide a functionally equivalent replacement behavior to the targeted behavior and determine if the intervention chosen will be effective in changing the behavior selected.
Preference Assessments determine POSSIBLE stimuli that could be reinforcing to the client. A Reinforcer Assessment would determine if the stimuli is reinforcing.
Results from Extinction occur more rapidly when the behavior was previoulsy maintained on a continuous schedule of reinforcement.
Punishment should always be paired with reinforcement. If there is a problem behavior being punished, there should always be a replacement behavior being reinforced. This helps satisfy the MO for the function of behavior maintaining the problem bx. This also prevents the occurrence of behavioral contrast in other conditons- so the problem bx doesn't increase in other instances.
All target behaviors selected for intervention should be socially significant for the particular client to increase the quality of life for the learner.
Reinforcement used in combination with extinction is more effective because a target behavior is decreaing and simultaneously teaching an appropriate replacement behavior.
A treatment will likely be more effective if the treatment focuses on increasing alternative behaviors while eliminating the unwanted behavior.
Goals should include specific examples of occurrences and non-occurrences of the target behavior to provide practioners a clear description of what is included within the behavior being measured.
Operational definitions decribe the actions of an individual as they are directly observed and can be measured by others.
Clear, complete, and objective goals provide researchers and practitioners explicit instructions on how to conduct goals to reach accurate evaluations and be replicated.
Clearly written goals provide a understandable and replicable instruction of the intervention and behaviors targeted.
Clearly written treatment plans provide staff, caretakers, and other stakeholders simple and understandable instructions and information regarding the interventions and behaviors targeted.
Complete goal includes operationally defined behaviors, examples, and non-examples of the behavior.
Goals should not inculde subjective terminology but purely be based on facts observed and measured.
Goals should include specific examples of the behavior and non-examples of the target behavior to provide practictioners a clear description of what is included within the behavior being measured.
Proper termination of services : discuss service needs of the client with stakeholders, provide pre-termination services, suggest alternative services.
If the BCBA has issues with a client they should seek out guidance and transfer the client to another behavior analyst that would be a better fit for the case. The BCBA needs to make sure that all parties are aware of the issue and transition.
Throughout all phases of ABA services the BCBA should take into consideration of the client first and foremost.
Whenever services are about to be terminated the BCBA must faciliate the proper transition and steps to term the services.
the treatment team has made a decision to terminate services with a client that is still in need of services. BCBA shold contine providing services while aiding in the steps to terminate or transfer services.
considered criteria for termination of a client: if the client will be harmed by continuing sevices, when the client request discontinuation of services, when the client has met goals and no longer will benefit from services.
A BCBA should fade out services whenever possible. The services should be faded into the client's natural environment.
There are many reasos that a BCBA may have to have another behavior analyst that they can trust to provide services to their clients. These include: illness, relocation, disaster, funding, and unavailability.
When a BCBA becomes ill and they will not be able to consistently supervise their cases it is their job to help find someone who they can trust and has experience working with the cases that supervision is needed.
It is important as a BCBA take into consideration all situations on an individual basis. Also, for the BCBA to exhaust all options before termination of services.
BCBA can consider termination services when parents of the client refuse to implement interventions that were agreed upon and are written in the treatment plan.
Mediation is the contribution of intervening behavior to the relation between other events. This instructs others and cooperates with other individuals to maintain new behaviors. Promoting generalization instructs others and cooperates with other professionals in order to maintain new behavior. ex, client has mastered how to wash the dishes during sessions. the BCBA on the case has asked her caretakers to allow her to do the dishes in the home.
Stimulus generalization refers to the ability to emit the same response to similar, untrained stimuli. Stimulus discrimination occurs when different stimuli do NOT evoke the same response. Stimulus generalization is to loose stimulus control as stimulus discrimination is to tight stimulus control.
Overgenealization, which occurs when a behavior under stimulus control os too broad. It happens when a learner's training results in generalization that causes poor performance or undesired results. So when a client calls all girls her sister, she is associated "sister" with anyone who is a girl, which is too broad.
Teaching someone what is NOT approperiate to talk about in a professional setting is a negative teaching example. Negative teaching examples involve direct teaching of where and when not to use the target bx. These are: "Don't do it" teaching examples, which provide practice for discriminating stimulus situations in which the target bx should not be emitted to sharpen stimulus control.
Delayed rewards and intermittent schedules create indiscriminable contingencies, where the learner never knows when reinforcement will be delivered. Indiscriminable contingencies are contingencies in which the learner cannot distinguish whether the next response will produce reinforcement in a generalized setting.
Multiple exemplar training teaches using multiple stimulus conditions(multiple examples), response variations and topographies to ensure the acquisition of desired simulus controlled response forms. It is used to promote stimulus generalization and response generalization. ex, Poppy has learned that she can use multiple names(responses) to identify her brother- the technician is using multiple exemplar.
General case study to teach the client all possible variations of peelers to use with all different types of vegetables and fruites(stimulus variations and response variation) to promote stimulus and response generalization. A general case study is a systematic method for selecting teaching examples that represent all the different stimulus variations & response requirements in the generalization setting.
BCBAs should plan for generalization opportunities to occur throughout the intervention. They should receive as much exposure to natural contingencies associate with the target response as they can during training periods.
Generalization requires systematic, thoughtful planning. Not programming for or monitoring generalization may result in undesirable outcomes.
Response generalization refers to the ability to emit variations of functionally-equivalent, untrained responses. Trining for response generalization contributes to shaping new behaviors.
Training for response generalization can be done by placing mastered responses on extinction and reinforcing new responses with the same function. However, interventionists must be careful not to accidentally reinforce new, undesired behaviors. Measures should be taken to limit reinforcement of undesired behaivors to avoid undesirable response generalization.
Loosely training involves randonly varying functionally irrelevant stimuli within and across teaching sessions; promotes generalization by reducing the likelihood that noncritical stimuli will acquire exclusive control over the target bx will be impeded or "thrown off" should they come into contact with any of the "loose"stimuli in the generalization setting. Promoting generalization alters noncritical elements of a instructional setting in arbitrary ways. Ex, BI run programs in the therapy room one session and in the play room another session.
Programming common stimuli involves including typical features of the genealization(natural) setting into the instructional setting. The BCBA included a teller set-up similar to typical stimuli in the natural environment within the session room(instructional setting) to practice how to make a deposit into the local bank.
Train loosely is to response generalization as multiple exemplar training is to simulus generalization.
Self-monitoring is a procedure that was developed for data collection that only the student could observe and it has evolved since to make it the most widely used because it results in target behavior change and reative effects.
Self-monitoring and self-evaluation are key parts of successful and using self-management to change behavior.
After the review of the data collection from self-monitoring, you deliver the consequence. Reinforce those good behaviors an put those undesirables on extinction.
Providing response prompts is an antecedent-based tactic because you're #desiredbx. This can be delivered by you or another person you recruite to help you.
Implementing and designing self-management inculde: 1)starting to self-monitor, 2) going public with the commitment to change the behavior, 3) constant evaluation of the program, 4) removing materials required for an undesired behavior, 5) limiting undesired behavior to restricted stimulus conditions, and 6) dedicating a specific environment for a behavior. #environmentalplanning
Self-management has many benefits, one key benefit is that people with different learning backgrounds can learn self-management skills that are individualized and effective for them.
Four purposes of self-management include: 1) living daily life more effectively and efficiently, 2) making better habits and breaking bad ones, 3) managing challenging jobs, and 4) obtaining self-behavior goals.
Guideline of self-monitoring : providing additional prompts, providing early and often self monitoring, making sure not to interrupt the flux of the target behavior. providing materials that are easy to use, each occurrence of the behavior should be self-recorded immediately.
Self-instruction is self-generated verbal responses, which can be covert or overt that function as response prompts for the desired behavior. #self-talk
Self-management is the application of behavior analytic interventions to the behavior of yourself, it requires the desired change in behavior.
Self-administered consequences include providing consequences for yourself after reviewing self-monitoring data. If you find it difficult to elimiate bootleg reinforcement, you can entrust another individual to deliver your consequences. Putting another trusted individual in charge of delivering the reinforcement is possibly necessary when developing self-administered consequence. Example: you make the decision to stop texting your ex for a week, but you cave one day that week, so your BFF takes your phone for the weekend as the consequence.
Controlling response is the self-management behavior and the cotrolled response is the target behavior you want to change. They are the 2 response of self-management(AKA 2-Response Phenomenon of Self-management)
Environmental planning is another term for self-management, it includes the tactic of manipulating MOs and performing initial steps of a behavior chain such as making your lunch for the next day.
Antecedent-based self-management: not having a mimosa before bruch with your squad because you got druck and danced on the breakfast table last weekend.
Massed practice is a self-management tactic that is forcing yourself to perform an undesired behavior repeatedly. This can be very dangerous to a person, so make sure it is ethically sound and absolutely necessary before implementing it.
Bootleg reinforcement allows for other avenues of receiving reinforcement for the undesired behavior, which is why it is important to set up easily attainable consequences that are small and realistic. Eliminating bootleg reinforcement is achieved by using consequences that are easy to achieve.
Self-management tactics: mass practice, sepf-instruction, and habit reveral