The Office
Kevin made his famous chili to bring into the office and share with his co-workers... the secret is to undercook the onions. And of course, he drops the HUGE pot of chili on the floor of the office. Whoops. To make that chili, he used a recipe which, like most recipes, had multiple steps in order to create a final product. He followed the steps of the recipe in order to make the chili. This is the ABA strategy that Kevin used while following the recipe to make the chili.
What is chaining?
A patient comes into the hospital, and they are in pretty bad shape. Christina immediately ordered the patient be given morphine, so that they can have relief from pain. This is the kind of reinforcement that the morphine was in relation to the patient's pain.
What is negative reinforcement?
Eleven loves Eggo waffles. She eats them almost every morning and for snacks. Counting the amount of Eggos that she eats over one day would be considered this kind of measurement.
What is frequency?
Leslie Knope needs to memorize the faces of some foreign important political leaders for her trip. So her and Ben Wyatt sat down at a table and ran through cards of different politicians. If Leslie got one wrong, Ben would do an error correction procedure. This is the kind of teaching that Ben was using to teach Leslie the names of the politicians.
What is DTT?
Walkers (zombies) actively pursue humans for food. These are the two functions of behavior for the walker's behavior.
What is access and sensory (access to the humans, sensory due to hunger)
Prison Mike (one of Michael Scott's fictional characters) described the most difficult part of jail to be the dementors - from Harry Potter. Yikes. What you didn't know is he counted how often those soul-sucking creatures flew by by recording whether he saw one during any part of a 1 hour interval. This is the kind of discontinuous measurement Prison Mike used.
What is partial interval recording?
Little Joe came into the hospital complaining about his arm. Dr. Grey ordered multiple tests, including blood work, an X-Ray, an MRI, and many others. Nothing seemed to be wrong with his arm. When Dr. Grey explained this to Joe's mother, she mentioned that Joe has a really big test at school tomorrow. This is a possible function of Joe's behavior.
What is escape/avoid?
Will, Mike, Dustin, and Lucas spend much of their free time playing Dungeons and Dragons. Each of them has their own character that they play with, and they go on quests. Sometimes, this drives Will's mom, Ms. Byers, crazy. She wanted to see how long the boys will go without playing D&D. This kind of measurement would be most helpful for knowing the time between the end of one game and the beginning of the next.
What is inter-response time (IRT)
Andy has come back from working in England for a few hours to visit April (how sweet!). But when April put him in a cab to the airport, Andy only stayed in the cab for about a block before he jumped out of the car and hid in a dumpster. When April asked him what he was doing, Andy explained he had no idea what he was doing in England, and that he was terrible at his job there. This was the function of Andy's behavior when he yeeted from the car and jumped into the dumpster.
What is escape?
Rick Grimes is trying to figure out how the group can successfully ration the little food they have left. In order to make the food last as long as possible, he directs everyone to increase the time between each meal. This is the kind of continuous measurement that can measure the length of time between the end of each meal, and the beginning of the next meal.
What is IRT or inter-response time?
Michael Scott's Dunder Mifflin Scranton Meredith Palmer Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Pro-Am Fun Run Race for the Cure was a highly unnecessary 5K fund raiser that the whole office was required to participate in. The problem is - Michael never runs, and then attempted to complete this 5K. Rather than jumping right in to it, he could have used this ABA strategy to take small steps, or successive approximations, to build up his running slowly, until he was ready to do the run all at once.
What is shaping?
Dr. Karev had an angry ex-husband come into the hospital demanding to know the results of his ex-wife's blood work. He seemed to be fairly convinced that she had been unfaithful during their marriage. However, without the ex-wife's permission, Dr. Karev cannot, and will not, share any of her information. This is the law that, just like at the hospital, prevents us from sharing client information without permission.
What is HIPPA?
The demogorgon (a big monster) is actively hunting down was actively hunting Will in the upside-down (alternate universe), Will's mother did absolutely everything she could to find and get her son back. This is the function of BOTH the demogorgon and Will's mom in relation to Will.
What is access to Will?
Andy is the greatest rock star of all time (Mouse Rat!!). But right now, he is shining shoes. April is trying to help him save up some money, but Andy has no idea how much he makes. Andy shines shoes for a total frequency of 16 over 8 hours. For each shoe she shines, he makes $20. What is the rate per hour that Andy makes shining shoes?
What is $40 per hour?
During the zombie apocalipse, resources are scarce. There is also a lot of work to be done to keep up with gardens, keep watch for walkers (zombies) and other potentially harmful humans, and so on. For every job that you do, you earn a ticket. Each ticket will get you a days ration of food. This is done to ensure everyone does their fare share in the community. The ticket system can also be considered this ABA program.
What is a token system?
Bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica - and bobble heads, and secret meetings with Angela, and Belsnickel traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas... all of these are for sure Dwight favorites. But, which one does he like most? And what's his second choice? And third? This is the kind of preference assessment Jim can use to figure this out, and he will not replace anything after it's been chosen - because identify theft is NOT a joke, Jim!
What is an MSWO (multiple stimulus without replacement) preference assessment?
When Dr. Avery ate sushi at the hospital cafeteria, he should have known better. Now he is admitted to the hospital he works at for food poisoning! And he is full of regret. Eating the sushi, which resulted in food poisoning, was this kind of punishment.
What is positive punishment?
While Will's Mom was trying to communicate with her son, who was in the upside down (another dimension), she set up Christmas lights to coordinate with letters of the alphabet in hopes that Will would be able to send her a message about how to find him. If Will's Mom had set a timer, and when it went off, looked up to see if the lights were lit with a message, she would be using this kind of discontinuous measurement.
What is momentary time sampling?
Chris has a rule against dating in the workplace - which of course Ben and Leslie did not follow. In fact, they were so in love, Ben sacrificed his job to continue his job with Leslie (awww). Similarly, all ABA staff have to follow ethical rules that are set by the BACB. This is the ethical rule that we follow that would prevent an RBT from having any kind of relationship with anyone we provide services for outside of sessions.
What is: Maintain professional boundaries (e.g., avoid dual relationships, conflicts of interest, social media contacts).
F-4 RBT task list
As Carol was growing up, Darryl taught him to use a bow and arrow. They had cans to aim at, and spent 2 hours a day practicing. When Carol got an arrow through the can, Darryl told him "good," and when he missed he ignored Carol - and then Carol would try again. This is the kind of differential reinforcement that Darryl used to increase the accuracy of Carol's aim.
What is differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA)?
What is a line graph?
Dr. Willson, before she was a doctor, had to do some trivial work. For instance, she had to calculate the rate per minute of someone's breathing. Over 10 minutes, the patient breathed for a total frequency of 1,000. This is the rate per minute that the patient breathed.
What is a rate of 100 per minute?
Eleven spent much of her early childhood in a facility where they did experiments on her :( .... she often tried to resist, and would increase her behavior (kicking, screaming, aggression....) as a way to resist the experiments. Unfortunately, the experimenters persued, until Eleven finally gave in. This is the ABA term for the phenomenon of this situation.
Andy is the best shoe shiner in Pawnee. And shining shoes is no easy work. You have to follow a list of individual steps to complete the one task of shoe shining. Therefore, shoe shining could be considered this kind of procedure.
What is a chaining procedure?
Negan, the baddest villian in the show, "took out" two characters in one horrible episode as retaliation for an ambush that the Rick's people did against Negan's people. This is the ABA principle that Negan used to decrease the likelihood that Rick's people would again attempt to ambush Negan's people or camp: The Sanctuary.
What is negative punishment?